Mitt Romney, P.I.

Former governor Mitt Romney has tried to appeal to a lot of people during his presidential campaign. He’s wooed evangelical Christians, courted the anti-illegal immigrantion contingent, and tipped his hunting cap to gun nuts.

Now, with his latest advertisement, Romney is targeting a new group: Rich people who need help finding their daughters who sneak out of the house, take drugs, and go missing. (If only Romney grew a mustache, he’d be just like Magnum.)

In a new TV spot, former Bain Capital employee Robert Gay tells the story of how Romney brought dozens of employees to New York to help him find his missing daughter.

My fourteen year-old daughter had disappeared in New York City for three days. No one could find her.

He set up a command center and searched through the night. The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney.

“Mitt has done a lot of things that people say are nearly impossible. But for me, the most important thing he’s ever done is help save my daughter.”

We’re happy Gay got his daughter back. But this wasn’t an innocent who got swallowed up in the big bad city after a field trip, as the Globe helpfully points out.

According to accounts in the Globe and other media outlets at the time, on July 6, 1996, Melissa Gay left her home in Ridgefield, Conn., without telling her parents. She went to a concert and party on Randalls Island, just off Manhattan in the East River, and sometime during the night took the drug Ecstasy.

It turned out that an unidentified boy had taken Melissa to his family’s home in Montville, N.J., and on the night of July 11 they called police after seeing television reports about the case, ending the search.

Not only will he end illegal immigration, but Mitt Romney will help you round up your rebellious teenage daughters. Now that’s a campaign platform we can get behind.