Join a live chat about “The Choice 2012” on 10/10 at 1:30 p.m. ET with the film’s producers and a group of the country’s leading journalists covering the candidates. You can leave a question now.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent years crafting their campaign narratives. Tonight, FRONTLINE takes you behind the slogans and behind the spin to present definitive portraits of the two men competing to lead this country.
We released six more “Artifacts of Character” this week, looking back at Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s paths to power and public identities. Now, a small group of the country’s leading journalists covering the candidates weigh in on this week’s artifacts.
Mitt Romney’s official gubernatorial portrait depicts him casually perched on a desk next to two objects: a photo of his beloved wife Ann and a bound copy of the 2006 health care reform law that was his crown policy achievement while in office.
At age 19, Mitt Romney set out for France to begin 30 months of missionary work for the Mormon church. Each day, he would wake at 6 a.m., eat breakfast, study his bible, and then go door-to-door looking to win over converts.
In this rarely seen letter, written while he was a community organizer in Chicago, Obama is still very much the writer, scribbling eloquent descriptions of his new hometown on yellow legal paper.
By 1999, following a crushing defeat in his bid to take the Senate seat of Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) almost five years earlier, Mitt Romney felt he had only one option left to remain in public life: becoming the CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.
Obama learned from his first big loss to Bobby Rush. Before he launched his next political campaign, he engaged in some political maneuvering that would allow him to run for, and win, a seat in the U.S. Senate.
We released four more “Artifacts of Character” this week, looking back at Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s early debates — and losses, and at the lessons they taught others. Now, a small group of the country’s leading journalists covering the candidates weigh in on this week’s artifacts.
In a 1978 talk at Harvard Business School, Mitt Romney aimed to teach young Mormon students how lessons from the business world can also apply to personal pursuits, and a path to self-improvement.
Join a group of the country’s leading journalists covering the presidential candidates for a discussion of this week’s “Artifacts of Character,” beginning at approximately 11:30 am.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.