Willard “Mitt” Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 14, 1947 to Lenore and former governor of Michigan George Romney. He was raised in Michigan along with his older siblings Lynn, Jane, and Scott. Mitt came from a very close knit Christian family and first left home in Michigan for Brigham Young University in Utah where he was valedictorian upon graduation. He also served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France during this time.

When he returned, Mitt married his childhood sweetheart Ann Davis in 1969 and then began to attend Harvard Law School where he earned degrees in both law and the M.B.A program in 1975.

When he finally finished with school, Mitt and his family stayed in Boston where he worked for a management consulting firm and from there started the Brain Capital private investment firm in 1984.

Mitt Romney began getting into politics in 1994 when he ran for the U.S Senate seat in Massachusetts but was defeated by Ted Kennedy. It was when he took over as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games that Mitt took stronger interest in following in his father’s footsteps. After Romney’s tenure in Salt Lake, he went on to become Massachusetts’ governor in 2003.

According to www.mittromney.com, in his time as governor he oversaw the reduction of a three billion dollar deficit and he also signed into law a health care program to provide nearly universal health care for the residents of Massachusetts.

In 2008 he declined to run for the re-election for governor and decided to run for president. He won the primaries in Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah before losing the Republican nomination vote to the Senator of Arizona, John McCain.

In 2011 Romney announced the start of his campaign to run once again for president. Romney ran against Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman to become the Republican nominee.  Romney was the last Republican standing as he began to go head to head with President Barack Obama.

He announced in August 2012 that his running mate for this year’s campaign was to be Paul Ryan, a conservative Representative from Wisconsin.