Mitt Romney helped Texas couple get a home, not cancer

Highlighting a report from yesterday's New York Times, Hot Air's Mary Katharine Ham has the scoop:

After Romney’s initial investment in five rental properties went south, he ended up holding on to them for more than a decade, often renting them at a loss. The Times notes it’s one of few miscues in Romney’s investment history. When he did offload the homes, the renters were given first dibs, but Timothy and Betty Stamps were unable to get a loan for the home because Timothy had recently lost his job.

So what did Romney do?  Well, like any good capitalist, he spat in their face and kicked dirt on them:

“Then I got this phone call, personally, from Mr. Romney, asking if we really wanted to buy the house,” Mr. Stamps, 63, said in an interview the other day at the barbershop he now runs. “I said, yes we did. And he said he would loan us the money. He really helped us when we needed it.” ...

Mr. Stamps said that he and his wife had received calls in recent months from strangers who “seemed to be looking for negative stuff” about Mr. Romney, but that the couple had nothing to say to them. (The Stampses recently refinanced the original 30-year loan; the new mortgage, still with Mr. Romney, was dated June 12 but signed just two weeks ago. Details of the interest rate were not included in the public record.)

Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, declined to answer questions about the Texas investment.

It's a great look at how Mitt Romney has quietly influenced people on an individual level -- you know, without giving them cancer, or something.

As Mary Katharine points out, the NYTimes still does its best to remind us that Mitt Romney is a wealthy 1%er by citing his "blizzard of hedge funds, thoroughbred horses and other gold-plated investments."  But the overall moral of this story is much more important:

[Romney] demonstrated personal faith in the Stampses and it turned into a cool story in which one American could make allowances for another American’s circumstances and take a risk a bank wouldn’t. Liberals find this noble when Freddie and Fannie do it with your money.

This is the kind of character I look for in a presidential candidate.  How about you?