Mitt Romney has a message to social conservatives about the important of having a secure moral anchor — illustrated by a story that includes a man's death.
Romney told the story he told at the Faith & Freedom Coalition this weekend, and again today in Iowa aboard the "Spirit of Dubuque" on the Mississippi River. (Text via pooler Juana Summers.)
We were out with friends on lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, on my motorboat. We had a 15 foot motorboat with an outdoor motor, and we took these friends on our boat and as they got on, the gentlemen that was with us, he turned to me and he said have you checked if you have your anchor? And I thought, well that's an unusual thing to request. But I went over and looked, and yes indeed the anchor was in its little compartment. And the trip went on with him and his wife. That day, I said, why did you ask about the anchor? He said, well it's actually kind of a sad story.
His son and some friends, some kids were water skiing at a very large lake. They were from Provo, Utah and the person that was water skiing behind the boat fell, and they turned the boat around to get them. But as they turned the boat around, they got the rope of the ski tangled in the propeller, and they couldn't get the propeller working. and it was windy like this, very windy. And the boat started to drift quite quickly away from the person on the water skis.
Now, he had a life jacket on, but they were getting a big distance between them and so the guy who was driving the boat, their son, jumped in the water to help the guy, make sure everything was okay. So both of them had life jackets and the boat drifted, further and further away and they could not get the rope off of that propeller. The boat finally reached shore, some long time later. The wind blew them there, and these swimmers were swimming with their life jackets on . It was dark by the time they reached shore, by the time they got there. The one who'd been water skiing slipped out of his life jacket, and drowned. And they said, the reason that the boat drifted away is because it didn't have an anchor.
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Now, I've learned in my life that it helps to have anchors. It helps to have understandings and values that are so superb that you can anchor your life and anchor all the things you're doing to values that are permanent and enduring," he said. "My family is my anchor. My wife, my kids, those elements of my life have brought me more joy than I ever would have imagined. The Constitution is an Anchor for America and the declaration of Independence.