Last night, Democrats at the Democratic National Convention highlighted the drastic differences between President Barack Obama’s modest upbringing and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, a multi-millionaire financier and former CEO.
STORY: Rewind! The Best Moments From Michelle Obama’s DNC Speech
“Barack [Obama] knows the American dream because he lived it,” belted Michelle Obama during her address. She emphasized Barack Obama’s character, values and upbringing and shared stories of their own middle class struggles. Her message was simple: Barack is an ordinary American who’s achieved extraordinary success through hard work and determination.
Other Democratic pundits drew a more deliberate picture of Mitt as an out-of-touch millionaire.
“Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it!” asserted keynote speaker Julian Castro. “We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don’t accept is the idea that some folks won’t even get a chance. And the thing is, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are perfectly comfortable with that America.”
Take a look at more contrasts between Obama and Romney and see why Barack is the epitome of the American Dream.
President Obama started out from humble beginnings. He was raised by his mother in a single-parent home in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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By contrast, Mitt grew up in an affluent area in Michigan, where he was raised in a two parent home that centered on politics. His mother ran as the Republican Party nominee for the US Senate and his father reigned as the Governor of Michigan in the ’60s.
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With the aid of student loans, President Obama graduated from both Columbia University and Harvard Law School. At age 42, he was able to finish paying off his student debt.
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On the other hand, Mitt Romney is a debt creator. He graduated from Brigham Young University and Harvard University, but according to Rolling Stone, he made his fortunes by borrowing money that other people had to pay back. As reported by Rolling Stone:
Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
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After college, Obama moved to the South Side of Chicago to work as a community organizer for lower class families. He also worked as a professor.
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After Mitt Romney graduated from college, he worked as a management consultant for a number of different companies, which prepared him for a future position as a chief executive of Bain Capital, a private equity firm that recently closed its factory in Illinois, laid off 170 workers, and outsourced the plant’s machinery to China.
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During tonight’s speeches, Democrats will continue to highlight the differences between Obama, a one time community organizer and Romney, a wealthy business owner. This is a race between two very different types of men, one an American Dream come true, the other an American life of wealth and privilege.
