Talk:Mitt Romney

Election winner in first paragraph?

[moved here from my talk page]

Just a comment from a passer-by. Just trying to be helpful.

In reference to [1]. I agree with Cwobell in that the information about "lost to Barack Obama" should be kept, it keeps the historical context. It's also strange to mention the nomination, but not what happened with the nomination.

However, the "but" could sound to some people as "ha, ha, he lost". It could be rewritten so that:

• the information "lost to Barack Obama" is preserved
• it doesn't sound offensive to some people

Just using different words, or a different structure to the sentence. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

What User:Cwobeel and User:Enric Naval seem to have missed in that diff is that the same information was there before (see lower left of the diff screen). So it's not a matter of being "factual" or the "historical context", it's simply a matter of presentation. Should the mention of losing to Obama be in the first paragraph, which along the lines of WP:MOSBEGIN has the role of identifying the subject of the article, or should it come later in the lead section, which per WP:MOSINTRO gives a concise narrative summary of the article. I believe the latter is more appropriate, since it is the culmination of the paragraph that describes his political career.

Out of curiosity I looked at what the articles for other only-presidential-nominee losers do, and as usual WP is gloriously inconsistent. The McCain article does not mention who he lost to in the first paragraph, the Kerry article does, Gore does not, Dole does by implication, Dukakis does, Mondale does not, McGovern does not, Humphrey does, Goldwater does not, Stevenson does.

But in this case, I think it's better the way it was before. With the change, we have to link "Democrat" very early on when it isn't pertinent to the subject, and the narrative of the last paragraph of the lead is just left hanging. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

If you refer to the current state (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitt_Romney&oldid=581577489) I agree it is better. Cwobeel (talk) 03:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Parts of this article are biased and populist.

Aren't phrases such as "profited handsomely" reserved for populist media? YuriyGulyayev (talk) 19:02, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

No. This Google Books search shows that the phrase has been used many hundreds of times, by authors of all kinds of backgrounds and perspectives. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Obama/Romney

Why isn't there a section like the one you did on Romney on president Obama? I know more about the meat that I eat that I know about president Obama, what is he trying to hide?

Arizonaflyer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.68.227.55 (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

This talk page is about improving the article titled Mitt Romney. If you want to suggest a change to the Barack Obama article (which already quite extensive), the correct place to put that suggestion is at Talk:Barack Obama, not Talk:Mitt Romney. Also you will need to be more specific on which of the many sections that appear on Mitt Romney you are want to parallel on Barack Obama, as it is not clear based on the wording above. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

"Swift exits" ref

The "Swift exits..." ref was recently marked as a dead link, but it could be fixed if the following...

<ref name="cnn031902">{{cite news | url=http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/19/massachusetts.governor/index.html | title=Swift exits, Romney joins Mass. governor's race | publisher=CNN | date= March 19, 2002 <!-- Retrieved October 30, 2006 --> }}{{dead link|date=January 2014}}</ref>

...was changed to read as...

<ref name="cnn031902">{{cite news |url= http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/19/massachusetts.governor/index.html |title= Swift exits, Romney joins Mass. governor's race |publisher= CNN |date= March 19, 2002 |accessdate= 2014-01-08 }}</ref>

...instead. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Request carried out, but edit semi-protected template has not expanded so there is no "answered = no" parameter to change to "answered = yes". - Arjayay (talk) 19:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

•  Done by Arjayay. Happy editing! Technical 13 (talk) 19:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)