Mitt Romney and People of Color: A Brief History in 15 Moments

Tonight, the 2012 Republican candidate for the American Presidency (and lifelong Caucasian) Mitt Romney will meet veteran person-of-color and current American President Barack Obama for the second of three debates before the election.

At this town hall debate, quote-unquote "normal" people will get to ask our President and candidate Romney probing questions about hot-button issues of the day like, “Mr. President, what’s your workout routine?” and “Governor Romney, did you update your operating system for this debate?"

That said, we thought it’d be helpful—if not downright enlightening—to take a quick look back at Gov. Romney’s long and storied history with people of color, and try get some sense of just how much a Man of All People the former governor plans to be, to the vast and seething rainbow that is America.

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RELATED: The 15 Funniest Mitt Romney Memes

Written by Steve Huff (@SteveHuff)

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Short Version: Mitt Romney doesn't believe in affirmative action.

Less-Short Version: After he became governor of Massachusetts in 2003, Mitt Romney closed the Massachusetts Office of Affirmative Action. In response to criticism, the governor appointed a panel to study the need for the office and it was eventually restored. Romney defended the move in an interview with the Washington Post, saying he believes America is “at its best when people are evaluated as individuals.”

Short Version: Mitt Romney said he saw his father marching with MLK Jr. Didn't happen.

Less-Short Version: Being a man of all the people is a long tradition in the Romney family. For years Mitt said he saw his father, former auto exec and Michigan governor George Romney, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King. Only the first Governor Romney did no such thing. George Romney did support the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and did participate in marches, but never directly with MLK. When questioned about saying he “saw” his dad marching with Dr. King, Gov. Romney explained he’d only used a “figure of speech.”

Short Version: Mitt Romney + Facebook x African-Americans = FAIL.

Less-Short Version: Some polls have given Mitt Romney’s support among black people as roughly zero—yes, zero—percent. However, the Facebook page “African Americans for Mitt Romney” currently has a 738 “likes.” So, yeah. Social media outreach is a good thing.

Short Version: "Afro-Americans for Romney" > "African-Americans for Romney," apparently.

Less-Short Version: For balance, we should mention that another Facebook page established to support Mitt Romney, “Blacks/Afro-Americans for Mitt Romney,” does have nearly three times (2,133) as many “likes” as the previously mentioned “African Americans for Mitt Romney.” Once again, social media outreach, for the win.

Short Version: The guy who took Mitt Romney's job is also the kind of guy Mitt Romney said he doesn't give a shit about.

Less-Short Version: Mitt Romney’s successor to the governorship in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, is African-American. While the subject of color hasn’t exactly come up between the men, Gov. Patrick did express personal disgust when Romney’s secretly-recorded comments about the “47 percent” of Americans who would never vote for him were revealed, saying, “I can tell you—as someone who grew up on welfare, who spent some time on food stamps—my mother was just the kind of person … who was aspiring to get to a better place, to get her GED, to get a job, to stand on her own two feet [...] And the notion that she or we or people like us would be belittled while we needed some help to be able to stand on our own two feet is exactly what I think Governor Romney is conveying.”

Short Version: Mitt Romney told a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People conference that if they wanted free stuff, they could vote for Obama.

Less-Short Version: Given the opportunity to speak to the NAACP in July, 2012, Mitt Romney naturally extended an olive branch to people of color from an increasingly snowy Republican Party by telling them that they can't have anything for free, except with the words “...But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this: If they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy—more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free."

Short Version: Romney went Brown-Face, both on TV and on a secret recording.

Less-Short Version: In fairness to Governor Romney, we have no idea what was going on when he appeared on an election-related Univision broadcast in September sporting notably dark makeup. Perhaps the makeup artists had run out of Ben Nye's Aging Mormon White pancake makeup. Whatever the case, Romney’s secretly recorded remarks from early in 2012 about how his chances for election would’ve been better if he’d been “born Latino” were revealed around the same time and, really, no one was happy.

Short Version: Mitt Romney wished that he were Mexican, though according to him, he kind of is (even though he really isn't).

Less-Short Version: Romney’s been concerned about his overwhelming whiteness for some time. His statement at the now-infamous “47 percent” Boca Raton fundraising dinner about how he’d have an easier time getting elected if he’d been born Latino is just a variation of when he told Fox and Friends’ Steve Doocy, “You know, I wish I could claim that I’m Hispanic and it would help me with the Latino community here in Florida and around the country, but my dad was born of American parents living in Mexico.”

Short Version: Stacey Dash from Clueless endorsed Mitt Romney. It did not go well.

Less-Short Version: Things don’t always end up feeling awkward and weird where Mitt Romney and people of color collide. A perfect example is when African-American actress Stacey Dash publicly endorsed the candidate on Twitter. Unfortunately for Stacey Dash, Twitter turned around and got kind of weird on her for making the endorsement.

Short Version: Mitt Romney "let the dogs out" with some young black guys. Because when you're with young black guys, that's what you do, right?

Less-Short Version: Speaking of cringe-inducing old guy moments, at least one Mitt Romney moment from January 2008 needs very little comment. The candidate in Jacksonville, FL, meeting a friendly group of young African-Americans, jovially speak-singing for no rational reason that anyone can come up with to this day, “Who let the dogs out, who-who-who...” Who indeed, Governor.

Short Version: Mitt Romney bought into the Birther Nonsense.

Less-Short Version: Questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States has always been one of the least coded of the many coded racist attacks on the first African-American commander-in-chief. Mitt Romney took a while, but he finally stepped in the big steaming pile o’ birther bullshit in August. Speaking at a campaign event in Michigan, Romney said, “I love being home, in this place where Ann and I were raised. Where both of us were born.... No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

Short Version: Romney hates "illegals."

Less-Short Version: When Mitt Romney found out a firm he’d employed to do work on one of his properties had undocumented workers on staff, he said, “I'm running for office for Pete's sake, we can't have illegals.” Which wasn’t coded language at all.

Short Version: Mormons treated African-Americans like second-class citizens until the late '70s.

Less-Short Version: Romney certainly hasn’t denied his Mormonism but he hasn’t made a point of discussing it much during the 2012 election cycle, either. One reason might be the always sticky question of how deeply connected he remains to a church that refused to admit African-Americans to the “lay priesthood” before 1978.

Short Version: Romney used the imagery of "hanging" to describe Obama's campaign in relation to a Different White Guy's campaign. America has an ugly, storied history of hanging black guys for no reason.

Less-Short Version: It seems so long ago now, but in 2011, candidate Romney made a gaffe while speaking about President Obama that was likely cluelessness on his part. Clueless or not, his campaign still rushed to clarify Romney’s meaning after he said the following during a New Hampshire campaign stop: “Reagan came up with this great thing about the ‘misery index’ and he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing [...] Well, we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck.” Romney quickly threw in the word “metaphorically” for a save. Smooth, Mitt. Smooth.

Short Version: Romney's most memorable photo op with people-of-color illustrates where he feels most comfortable around them: As a customer of a fast-food restaurant.

Long Version: An image of Romney posing with employees of a Chipotle where he ate while preparing for his first debate with Barack Obama was made under perfectly normal circumstances and rendered epic only by the expression on the face of the man to Romney’s left, restaurant manager Marty Arps. Arps later said, “It’s a facial expression I do when I’m excited.” Arps’s excitement was so palpable he became a meme.