Former Olympic colleagues defend Romney

Some of Mitt Romney’s colleagues who organized the 2002 Winter Olympics said Thursday they’re skeptical that he also could have been moonlighting as CEO of Bain Capital.

Getting the Salt Lake City games into shape after an international bribery scandal was a grueling task that demanded nearly all of Romney’s time, former colleagues from both sides of the political aisle said. They said they didn’t see any evidence to back up The Boston Globe and other media accounts suggesting Romney may have been pulling double duty as head of the Olympic effort and as chairman and chief executive of the Boston investment firm he co-founded.

“He was working more than full time on the Olympics,” former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said. “I worked with him on a regular basis and it seemed to me he was giving everything he had time-wise, energy-wise to the Olympics.”

“Regardless of whatever political differences Mitt and I have, having worked with him as closely as I did, I was extremely impressed with the diligence and competence he brought to that drive,” added Anderson, who left the Democratic Party to run for president this year for the newly formed Justice Party.“He really rolled up his sleeves and seemed personally engaged in many of the details that others might have pushed off onto underlings.”  (Continues)