Mitt Romney Republican Party

Date of Birth: March 12, 1947 Education: Bachelor of Arts degree 1971, Brigham Young University; Master of Business Administration and law degrees, 1975, Harvard University. Family: Wife, Ann; five adult sons, Craig, Benjamin, Joshua, Matthew and Taggart. Religion: Christianity (Mormon)

Born to a wealthy and politically active family, Mitt Romney is no stranger to the political stage, having run for Republication nomination for the White House in 2008, but eventually losing to John McCain.

Romney was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan by his parents Lenore and George W. Romney, who was a chairman of American Motors, a governor of Michigan and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968.

Mitt Romney spent two and a half years in France as a Mormon missionary starting in 1966, before he went on to earning degrees from Bringham Young and Harvard.

After graduation, Romney entered the management consulting industry, joining Bain & Company in 1977 and eventually serving as its chief executive officer. He later co-founded the offshoot company Bain Capital, a highly profitable private equity investment firm. The firm became one of the largest of its kind in the United States.

With success in the private sector, Romney followed in the footsteps of his father, launching a failed bid against veteran senator Ted Kennedy for a seat in the US Senate.

In 1999, Romney organised the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics after taking over as president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002

Romney was elected as governor of Massachusetts in 2002, running as a fiscally conservative and socially moderate Republican. As governor, he passed landmark healthcare legislation for his state, which served as a blueprint for Barack Obama’s healthcare reform bill as president.

Romney's second bid for the presidency has fared better with him clinching the Republican nomination. But his campaign has been plagued by a series of gaffes and hiccups, many of those having to do with his change in positions on social issues, such as abortion, as well as his personal wealth. Democrats have termed him a flip-flopper who is out of touch when it comes to the lives of average Americans.

His campaign has focused on the state of the US economy with him attacking the Obama administration as one with failed economic policies and broken promises.

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