All things considered, Romney should probably avoid them. But this morning during a talk to staff at the Moffitt Cancer & Research Institute in Tampa he began to talk about how when you get older, you begin to care more about the future–especially the future of your kids and, then, the future of your grandkids. To illustrate the point, he said that when he first sat down with the attorney working on his will, she asked whether he wanted to leave anything for his grandkids. He didn’t have any grandkids at the time and said no, he would just give to his sons and they would give to their children if they needed it. “Now that I have grandkids,” he said, “I went back to her and said I don’t want to give anything to my boys. [Insert snarky jokes about his campaign spending here.] I want to give it all to my grandkids.” The audience laughed loudly.
By the way, at this event with medical professionals in a state-of-the-art auditorium in a sprawling complex of modern medical buildings, Romney seemed completely in his place. Just as an audience of church-goers in Iowa might look at Huckabee–regardless of what he was saying–and conclude he’s one of them, you can see these sort of professionals listening to Romney–especially when he talks about his work with hospitals in the private sector and his health care initiative in Massachusetts–and conclude that he’s one of them, whatever they think of his views. (Otherwise, I didn’t see his basic stump speech, which he eventually transitioned into at the event, moving these folks much.)