Romney's sons tell Ky. delegation about growing up Romney and how their father will lead

CLEARWATER BEACH — Mitt Romney won’t shrink from the fiscal challenges facing the country, two of Romney’s sons told Kentucky delegates on Tuesday.

Ben and Craig Romney — the youngest two of Mitt and Ann Romney’s five sons, broadly outlined challenges facing the country and hinted at one of the challenges Romney still faces in the presidential race — connecting personally with voters.

Both Ben and Craig Romney told several dozen Kentucky delegates at their breakfast that their dad instilled in them the virtues of hard work and frugality. Sometimes that meant running around the house turning out lights, Ben Romney said.

Ben Romney, 34, is a resident at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He talked more about policy than his younger brother. He outlined a list of the nation’s fiscal ills.

“This country is in real need of a real leader right now — somebody who is not going to run away from challenges but is going to face them head on,” he said.

He also pledged to the delegates that his father would be a champion for the middle class.

Craig Romney, 31, works in real estate in San Diego. He previewed a theme that came out in Ann Romney’s speech Tuesday night on the convention stage when he talked about his father’s generosity. He told the story of how Romney, while in charge of Bain Capital, shut down the firm to bring all the employees to New York to search for the missing daughter of one of the firm’s workers.

“I consider some of his greatest accomplishments to be ones that people don’t know too much about — like finding a young girl who was lost,” he said.