Character Matters; Actions Matter

The following story has been verified as true. The situation occurred in 1996. Hopefully, in the 2012 elections, American voters will note that character matters and actions matter. For your consideration, below is a true story. It is not from someone's imagined past or from "dream of my father." ~ Bill Smith, Editor

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Robert Gay

Robert Gay: My 14 year old daughter had disappeared in New York City for 3 days. No one could find her. My business partner, Mitt Romney, stepped forward to take charge. He closed the company and brought almost all our employees to New York. He said I don't care how long takes, we're going to find her. He set up a command center and searched through the night. The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney. Mitt's done a lot of things that people say are nearly impossible. But, for me, the most important thing he's ever done is to help save my daughter.

The is more detailed information below, but the following political commercial in 2008 summed up the story:


Background: On the night of July 6, 1996, 14-year-old Melissa Gay, daughter of Bain Capital executive Robert Gay, went missing after attending a late-night rave in New York City. Gay recruited his business partners, including Mitt Romney, and the Boston-based firm's 200 employees to help him conduct a city-wide search.

"And so I said," Romney recalled when asked about the incident during a town hall meeting in March 2012, "‘Let’s close the firm, let’s close the company. Let’s all of us fly down to New York and try to find her.’ And so we closed the business, we went home and packed our things, we got a hotel near the airport where we all went to, we set up a headquarters, we met with the detectives with the New York City Police Department, we hired a private investigative firm to help guide us through this process."

Gay, Romney, and team literally fanned out on the streets of Manhattan in suits and ties, distributing 300,000 fliers and asking passersby point-blank if they had seen the missing girl. Their efforts quickly paid off in the form of a phone call from a private residence in Montville, New Jersey, where it turned out Melissa was staying with acquaintances. She was retrieved by police and reunited with her parents in the early morning hours of July 12.

"She's OK," Robert Gay said in a statement to the Associated Press. "How can you ask for anything more than that?"
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Robert Gay was a former Managing Director at Bain and is now General Authority for the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City.

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