Willard Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 until 2007, when he began an unsuccessful run for president of the United States. Romney is a successful businessman with a political pedigree: his father, George Romney, was the governor of Michigan from 1963-69 and ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1968. (He was defeated by Richard Nixon.) Mitt Romney graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971, and earned both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard in 1975. Romney worked for the management consulting firm Bain & Company before founding the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984. Romney became a national figure in 1999 when he took over as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from money and ethical problems. The Salt Lake City Games went off on time and on budget in 2002, and later that year Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts. He served one term, then declined to run for reelection in 2006. In February 2007 he announced a run for the presidency; he ended his run in February 2008, after falling behind John McCain in early Republican primaries. Romney married the former Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998... Romney ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, losing to longtime incumbent Edward Kennedy. Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Romney wrote the 2004 book *Turnaround : Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games*.

Jeff Jacoby has been an op-ed columnist for *The Boston Globe* since 1994. Seeking a conservative voice, *the Globe* hired him away from *the Boston Herald*, where he had been chief editorial writer since 1987. *The Boston Phoenix* has dubbed his twice-weekly essays ''a must-read,'' describing him as ''the region's pre-eminent spokesman for Conservative Nation.'' A native of Cleveland, Jeff Jacoby graduated with honors from George Washington University in 1979, and from Boston University Law School in 1983. He briefly practiced law at the nationally renowned firm of Baker & Hostetler, returning to Boston in 1984 to work on a political campaign. He is also a frequent guest on radio talk shows across North America. He serves on the board of the New England chapter of the American Jewish Committee, and is a director of the Ford Hall Forum, the nation's oldest free public-lecture series. In 1999, Jacoby became the first recipient of the Breindel Prize, a $10,000 prize for excellence in opinion journalism. In 2004, he received the Thomas Paine Award of the Institute for Justice, an award presented to journalists ''who dedicate their work to the preservation and championing of individual liberty.'' Jeff Jacoby is married to the former Laura Weller. They live in Brookline, Massachusetts, with their sons, Caleb and Micah.