And now from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the Act Spiles, with your host, David Axelrod.

If you had told me four years ago that I was going to be sitting down with Mitt Romney for an hour-long conversation, I would have told you you were nuts.

But we've actually gotten to know each other over the last few years, and while we still disagree on many things, we've had some really good conversations.

One of them was today, and I want to share it with you.

I'm here with Governor Romney, who was the presidential nominee in 2012, and I have to confess I was not a supporter back then.

Shocking. Yes. Absolutely shocking. But since that time, I got to meet your splendid Chief of Staff Beth Meyers, who's now on the board of the Institute of Politics.

And you and your wife Ann were generous enough to invite my wife, Susan, and I have to talk to your conference, to your donor conference, about epilepsy research, which, because of my daughter, Lauren, is a big cause for us.

And you've come to our IOP, and I've been back to your conference to talk politics. I did feel I was worried that I was going to be like Michael Vic at an ASPCA convention.

But you guys treated me very well. I had safe passage all throughout, and it was a good conversation.

But this will shock you. We actually have something pretty big in common. One of my childhood heroes was your dad, George Romney.

I was a young kid. I was very interested in politics. I was very much into the civil rights movement. And we also had a rambler.

Wow. Wow. Yes. It's really something.

Which he, of course, pioneered as an auto executive, said he fought the dinosaur gas guzzlers is what he said. And we had one of those cars.

But I really admired him because he fought valiantly for the concept of equal rights for African Americans. And that was a big part of his leadership in Michigan.

And beyond it, HUD ran a foul of President Nixon and some of his folks because he pushed so hard for desegregation.

Tell me about him in that regard. What makes him what made him such a maverick in on some of these issues? He was really a progressive force within the Republican Party.

I don't know that he thought of himself as being involved politically at all. I mean, he was a car guy. As you know, born in Mexico, came to this country poor, didn't graduate from college.

Got a job, his first job working for a Democrat senator from Massachusetts, actually. And ultimately became kind of an expert in trade policy and got hired by the aluminum company of America to work for them.

Found himself working in the auto industry ultimately and rose to the top of a car company. But as we sat down at the dinner table, and by the way, back in the 1960s, that's what you did.

You sat at the dinner table every night, and we would have long discussions about the economy, about cars, about politics, but what was happening in the country, about the president.

That's just what we did. And I, you know, I, I saw him very concerned about a few critical political issues.

One was education in America and in Detroit. He was very concerned about Detroit schools. And ultimately became involved with a major project to try and revamp the school system in, in Detroit.

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