One can be sure that both President Obama and Mitt Romney will reference Felix Baumgartner's historic leap from the edge of space.
Romney will likely try to wrap himself in the daring of that achievement, and the raw individual courage it took to do it. Of course, Romney himself is a coward and a phony, two words I would not apply, for example, to the 2008 candidate, John McCain. Remember, Romney insisted upon a pre-written letter stating that his parent company "needed" him back if Bain Capital had failed. Some risk-taker! So, the mere anticipation of Romney talking about this provokes nausea.
But, the story of Baumgartner's giant leap is really an American paradigm -- he had amazing technology and an amazing team behind him. The problem Romney has is that he thinks the latter somehow takes something away from Baumgartner's achievement. It doesn't. It adds to it.
Hopefully, the President will strike the proper chord. It is not the individual vs the team, it is BOTH, together.
We would do well to acknowledge this, and get on to the business of problem-solving instead of reality-twisting.
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