This morning, Mitt Romney created a stir when he said in an interview, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” He was trying to make the point that there’s already a social safety net for the poor and his economic plan is focused on the middle class, but in the process he handed an attack ad to Democrats on a silver platter. What’s interesting is that this is part of a long history of Romney statements that make him look totally callous, even though he’s personally very generous. If you read the Real Romney, a new biography by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman that I highly recommend, it’s full of stories of Romney’s quiet charity – helping neighbors, fellow church members and others with not only money, but personal time. This is a side of him that rarely comes across publicly.

In their book, Kranish and Helman recount a perfect example of the contrast between his public image and his personal generosity from his 1994 Senate race in Massahcusetts against Ted Kennedy. Roughly a week before the election, Romney did a campaign stop at a Boston shelter for homeless veterans. The director of the center, Ken Smith, told Romney that their budget was being hammed by the cost of milk. In his political mode, Romney awkwardly joked that they should just teach veterans how to milk cows. Obviously, that did not go over well.