The Screwups of Campaign '08

Presidential campaigns are so carefully stage-managed that few things are as entertaining as the mistakes politicians make on the trail. Throughout the 2008 race, check out TIME.com's ongoing chronicle of each candidate's gaffes, and then vote on just how big a screwup each one is

Romney's French Twist

marriage france

Torsten Blackwood / AFP / Getty

Mitt Romney
May 5, 2007


"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

Romney, at a commencement address at Regents University. In fact, neither marriages nor civil unions in France have any set end date. Oddly enough, seven-year marriage contracts are a plot point in the Memories of Earth science fiction series by Mormon author Orson Scott Card.


— Ana Marie Cox


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