Romney Gives Unemployed Woman Cash on Ropeline

SUMTER, S.C. – Presidential candidates hear tales of woe all the time on the campaign trail. But rarely does one respond by pulling cash out of his back pocket to help a struggling voter pay her bills.


Mitt Romney did just that here Saturday night, according to ABC News. When a 55-year-old woman, Ruth Williams, who said she lost her job last October, approached the Republican presidential front-runner on the rope line following a campaign rally in Sumter, he gave her what an aide later said was about $50 or $60.


It did not appear that the exchange was caught on camera, but ABC’s off-air reporter, Emily Friedman, witnessed it and interviewed Williams afterward. Williams told Friedman that she has been volunteering at Romney’s Columbia, S.C., campaign offices and has been following his campaign since first spotting his campaign bus on Wednesday.


“I was on the highway praying and said, ‘God, tell me how to get [my] lights on,’” Williams, apparently referring to her electricity bill, told Friedman. “I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there. And then God said, ‘Follow the bus,’ and I followed the bus.


I was on the highway praying and said, ‘God just show me how to get [my] lights on,’ and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there,” said Williams, who has been unemployed since last October. “And then God said, ‘Follow the bus,’ and I followed the bus to the airport.”
According to Williams, she followed the campaign bus to the Columbia airport on Wednesday, the same day Romney was arriving from New Hampshire. When Romney wasn’t on the bus, aides told her to go to the rally scheduled in Columbia later that day. When she showed up, Romney found her to say hello and pulled over South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to say “hello” too.
“He was kind to me and he made Gov. Haley come see about me,” Williams said. “He stopped doing everything.”
Williams, who would not specify how much money Romney gave her, said also that South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis paid her light bill on Thursday. A spokesman for Loftis, one of Romney’s major endorses in the state, confirmed to ABC News that he paid Williams’ bill. While Loftis didn’t know the amount of the bill, he confirmed that he gave her $150.
“God didn’t tell me to go to nobody else, he told me to pray for Romney,” said Williams, when asked why she has decided to support Romney. “I listened to the Lord.”
Williams said she has been volunteering at Romney’s Columbia headquarters since meeting his bus last week.