You show up exhausted from your flight in to SLC, but you're quickly whisked away to your room at the Marriott, where a brand new Sealy mattress awaits you.
On the mattress lie three cute stuffed animals in the likeness of the Olympic mascots, you pick one up to snuggle and notice the Mattel logo on the tag.
As you step to the washroom to rinse your face, you notice, next to the hygienically sealed bar of soap, an equally hygienically sealed item, a small commemorative pin, you pick it up to take a closer look:
It IS an Official 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics Commemorative Pin!
And it's in the heroic likeness of Mitt Romney!
And then it dawns on you:
The hotel room you're in, the Marriott;
The mattress you're lying on, the Sealy;
The the plush toys you're cuddling, the Mattel:
Mitt Romney has his fingers on every single one of them no less than he has his heroic face on that pin.
Yes my friend,
You have entered......
....The Mitt Zone
The Mitt Zone is a unique fourth dimension where you can be CEO of the Olympics and be CEO of Bain Capital at the same time. It's a unique fourth dimension where the companies you own are also your clients and sponsors. Where they make pins bearing the chiseled likeness of your glorious self.
Mattel:
Mattel Toys, troubled firm partly owned by Bain, signs on as Olympics Sponsor, 9/25/1999
Seally:
Sealy Mattress landed a plum marketing deal last June: The bedding giant was named the official mattress supplier for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. The arrangement also was good for Olympic chief and gubernatorial candidate Mitt [ROMNEY]. He and his former colleagues at Bain Capital, a Boston investment firm, are Sealy's majority owners.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/...
(Credit to brand new DKOS user mollydog1994 for the citation above
in her first comment ever! Please saunter on over to that first-ever comment and give mollydog1994 a warm welcome to DKOS!)
(This one is behind a paywall at the Boston Globe, if anybody has access.
Marriott
January 23, 2000
The SLOC announced that Marriott International agreed Wednesday to be an official supplier of hotel rooms for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games
http://www.mormonstoday.com/...
Mitt Romney sat on the Marriott board between 1998 and 2002, and is "close family friends" with the Marriott family.
http://thephoenix.com/...
For those of you keeping count at home, that's three Olympic sponsors with close ties to Romney, and that's just in the hotel room. For all I know he owned the toilet paper company too.
My previous diaries on the subject of Mitt Romney and the Olympics:
Follow. The. Olympics. Money. Bain+Romney 1999-2001
A Second Bainster was the COO/CFO Of the 2002 Olympics; Another Sponsor linked to Bain, Romney
Mattel Toys, troubled firm partly owned by Bain, signs on as Olympics Sponsor, 9/25/1999
Diaries by other authors focusing on Romney and the Olympics:
The REAL real reason Romney MUST say he left Bain in February 1999, by MKSinSA
Romney's Olymics, by ThatPoshGirl
The Marriott, and especially the Sealy stories are crying out to be diaried.....
5:46 PM PT: Modified to give credit to brand new user mollydog1994 for the Sealy citation above in her first DKOS comment ever.