The Utah ski lodge  

Republican hopeful Mitt Romney owns homes and adjacent property estimated at $30 million, not including his Canadian home, co-owned by siblings.  If the race were to be won on the basis of wealth alone, Mitt would be our man.

According to NewsDaily.com, his net worth is $200 million.  He is the richest man to run for president since Steve Forbes who was worth about $430 million when he ran in 1996 and 2000.  Romney’s La Jolla, California beachfront compound purchased three years ago and estimated at $12 million, is currently under expansion to quadruple its size.  The 3-story, 6-bedroom, 5,400-square-foot lake house in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire where the family “summers,” is valued at $10 million.

In 2009, Mitt sold the 9,500-square-foot Utah ski chalet (photo above), estimated at $5.25 million as well as the $3.5 million 6,400-square-foot colonial in Belmont, Massachusetts where he and his wife raised their sons.

“I wanted to be where I could hear the waves,” Romney told reporters at a book signing in California last year. 

“As a boy we spent summers on Lake Huron and I could hear the crashing waves at night.  It was one of my favorite things in the world; being near the water and the waves was something I very badly wanted to experience again.”

Some Americans are hoping for a home, any home, a simple roof over their heads.  Think of all the soon-to-be-foreclosed-on and homeless Americans he could house in that beachfront property!  Still, I can sympathize with Mitt’s love of ocean waves.  After all, a multi-millionaire does need a seaside compound to retreat to at the end of a long day.

As former governor of Massachusetts, Romney vetoed $220,000 for state-run homelessness projects.  (MassScorecard.org, Bill H.4011, July 14, 2005)

If elected, perhaps he will invite a handful of the estimated 2.3 to 3.5 million homeless citizens to slum with him in La Jolla.  Isn’t that why he’s quadrupling it in size?

  
The La Jolla compound, not yet under construction  

 
Tent community (some of Mitt's future roommates reside here) 

Newt.
Newt Gingrich’s 5-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom, 5,206-square-foot house in McLean, Virginia, was built in 1987.  The real-estate website Zillow.com estimates the home’s value at nearly $1.275 million. 

Newt’s hobbies include studying “dinosaurs and other fossils.” 

In December, 2011, Gingrich met with a crowd of people at a restaurant in Spencer, Louisiana.  Mechelle Williams, a single mother of four, and factory worker for 16 years, asked Gingrich what he would do to save her family from homelessness.  

Ms. Williams said, “On February 21st the kids and I are going to be homeless.  Iowa Bankers Mortgage is foreclosing.  It’s not because I don’t work hard.  It’s not because I don’t pay my bill.  It’s not because I’m uneducated.  I’ve exhausted all of my resources and I’m sadly not the only family in this position. I’m wondering what you might do for those families?”

His answer was simple:  repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act.  The Dodd-Frank Act (also known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) is a U.S. federal law which places regulation of the financial industry in the hands of government.  Enacted in July 2010, its aim was to prevent another financial crisis by creating new financial regulatory processes to enforce transparency and accountability while implementing rules for consumer protection. 

Ms. Williams told the Des Moines Register that she didn’t feel Gingrich’s response would assist her.

Santorum.
Rick Santorum’s Leesburg, Virginia home with 3.76 acres of land is currently valued at $1.4 million.  He also has a more modest home in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. 

On the subject of homes, Santorum helped lay waste to the Armed Forces Retirement Home, run by the Department of Defense, a “premier home for military retirees and veterans.”  The 272-acre facility is located in northern D.C. and the almost 600 veterans who live there enjoy a view of the city.  During its heyday, over 2,000 veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War lived within its walls.  In the past several years, the Retirement Home has been beset by financial difficulties.  Hoping to offset their losses, officials running the Home eyed a 49-acre piece of land worth $49 million. 

Andy Kroll’s article in Mother Jones of January 20, 2012, explains further, “At the behest of the Roman Catholic Church, and unbeknownst to the Home, Santorum slipped an amendment into the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act handcuffing how the home could cash in on those 49 acres.  The amendment forced the Home to sell—and not lease—the land to its next-door neighbor, the Catholic University of America.  Ultimately, the Catholic Church bought 46 acres of the tract for $22 million..  The Home lost the land for good, and by its own estimates, pocketed $27 million less than the land’s value and $83 million less than what it could’ve made under the lease plan.  Santorum’s amendment sparked an outcry from veterans’ groups and fellow U.S. senators, who barraged his office with complaints.” 

Laurence Branch, executive director of the Home’s board, said, “I’m convinced that Santorum is no friend of veterans” despite his pleas to the contrary.  It seems that Santorum’s dedication to Catholicism trumped his pledge to our veterans.

Ron Paul and his wife Carol own two homes in South Texas.  Paul announced in April on his Facebook page that he’s selling the house where he and his family (including son Rand) have lived for more than four decades.  They are asking $325,000 for the 4-bedroom, 5-bathrooms home with 2 lofts and a swimming pool.  The website “ Buy Ron Paul’s House” says, “generations of Liberty loving kids have grown up here, and you can continue the tradition.”

Perhaps he could have sold that home earlier and given the money to the family of his former campaign manager, Kent Snyder, who died of complications from pneumonia in 2008.  He died at age 49 on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for presidency; his hospital bills totaled $400,000, and he was uninsured.  The bill was given to Snyder’s mother who was unable to pay.  Friends created a website to solicit donations.

Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Paul said, “It was Kent more than anyone else who encouraged and pushed Paul to run for president.  Ron would not have run for the presidency if it had not been for Kent.”

During a CNN appearance in September 2011, Wolf Blitzer presented a hypothetical scenario for Paul, asking him if the state should pay the bills of an uninsured young man in dire need of medical attention.

Paul said, “That’s what freedom is all about:  taking your own risks.  This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody—”.  He did not complete the sentence but instead told a personal anecdote which implied that it was up to the “churches” to care for the dying man. 

What about Dr. Paul helping out his manager?  I guess that never crossed his mind.  What about the Hippocratic oath, “do no harm.”  I’m sure Ron could talk his way out of that somehow.