关于奥巴马和罗姆尼你不知道的10件事

Four debates and countless campaign stops later, voters have learned much about their candidates' positions, policies, and personalities. Or have they?
四场辩论结束美国总统大选即将收官，选民们对候选人的立场、政策和个性已经足够了解了。真是这样吗？

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Barack Obama
关于奥巴马你不知道的5件事

1. He learned not to sling mud from mom.
他从母亲那里学会了不要诽谤他人

Although he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Barack Obama spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, instilled in her young son a deep sense of respect, a particularly important value in Indonesian culture. Obama's sister opened up on this period of their lives for a New York Times story, and describes how even as children they adopted this Indonesian custom: "We were not permitted to be rude, we were not permitted to be mean, we were not permitted to be arrogant. We had to have a certain humility and broad-mindedness."
虽然出生在夏威夷的檀香山，奥巴马童年时期曾经在印度尼西亚生活了四年。他的母亲斯坦利·安·邓纳姆逐渐向年轻的儿子灌输了深深的尊重意识，这在印尼文化里是一种非常重要的价值观。奥巴马的姐姐在接受《纽约时报》的采访时曾经描述过他们那段时期的生活，提到了他们小时候养成的这种印尼的习惯：“我们不能举止粗鲁，不能心存邪念，不能傲慢自大。我们必须谦逊有礼、心胸开阔。”

2. His parents predicted his presidency.
他的父母预料到他会成为总统

Obama's mother always realized her son's potential, and told a friend from Hawaii she believed he could be president of the United States. One of Obama's teachers in Indonesia recounts a conversation between young Barry and his stepfather, Lolo. When Lolo asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama responded, "Oh, prime minister."
奥巴马的母亲一直看好儿子的潜能，她曾和一位夏威夷的朋友说过，她相信奥巴马会成为美国总统。奥巴马在印尼的一位老师回忆起小奥巴马和他的继父罗洛的一段对话。罗洛问奥巴马长大了想干什么，奥巴马回答说，“噢，想当首相。”

3. He's a poet (and we didn't know it).
他是一位诗人（而我们都不知道）

Journalist David Maraniss uncovered several of Obama's romantic correspondences for his book about the life of the President, Barack Obama: The Story. Obama's smooth words reveal the soft side of a young man in love. One such letter from 1983 to a one-time girlfriend, reported by Maraniss, describes New York City: "Moments trip gently along over here. Snow caps the bushes in unexpected ways, birds shoot and spin like balls of sound. My feet hum over the dry walks. A storm smoothes the sky, impounding the city lights, returning to us a dull yellow glow."
记者大卫·马拉尼斯在他记录总统生活的传记《巴拉克·奥巴马的故事》中披露了奥巴马的浪漫信件。奥巴马流畅的文字向我们展示了一个恋爱中的年轻人柔软的一面。马拉尼斯披露的一封他在1983年和前女友的信中这样描述纽约：“片刻时光的旅行在那儿悄悄延续。雪花用出乎意料的方式覆盖了灌木丛，被击中的鸟发出阵阵叫声，在空中旋转。我的双脚踏上这干燥的小路。一场风暴让天空平静，把城市的灯火熄灭，还给我们一片昏黄的光芒。”

4. Seinfeld, Suzanne Vega, and ...
经典美剧《宋飞正传》，著名女歌手苏珊·薇格，还有.......

Like most college students arriving in New York, Obama took up in a less-than-desirable apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side after transferring to Columbia University. To escape his living situation, where heat and hot water were in limited supply, Obama often went for breakfast with his roommate at Tom's Diner (the outside setting of Monk's, the Seinfeld characters' favorite meeting place).
和大多数来到纽约的大学生一样，奥巴马转入哥伦比亚大学后住在曼哈顿上西区的一所条件很差的公寓里。为了摆脱这种暖气和热水都限量供应的生活，奥巴马常常和他的室友去汤姆快餐店（就在蒙克快餐厅外面，系列喜剧《宋飞正传》里的主角最爱的见面地点）吃早餐。

5. His students got a preview of his presidency.
他的学生预先体验过他的总统魅力

Before he became the junior senator from Illinois, Obama taught for 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School, where he honed in his skills as a future politician. In the classroom he was easy-going, joking with students and interspersing movie references with case law. It wasn't until after Obama entered the political arena that his U. Chicago colleagues and students recognized themes of his campaign that had originated in the classroom.
在成为伊利诺伊州参议员之前，奥巴马在芝加哥大学法学院当了12年老师，在这里他磨练了未来从政的许多技巧。在课堂上奥巴马亲切随和，和学生开玩笑，穿插电影片段作为案例法的参考。直到奥巴马进入政坛，他在芝加哥大学的同事和学生才意识到，奥巴马竞选的主题就起源自当年的教室。5 Things You Didn’t Know About Mitt Romney
关于米特·罗姆尼你不知道的5件事

1. He was a ramblin' man.
他的爱车曾是“漫步者”

As a student at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield, Michigan, young Mitt was surrounded by other sons of auto industry executives. Although they cruised around in hippercars like Pontiac GTOs and Corvettes, Romney insisted on driving a rambler, the hallmark initiative of his father's tenure as CEO of American Motors. According to former classmate Jim Bailey, for teens their age, [the rambler] "was the least cool car in the entire world."
毕业于密歇根布鲁姆菲尔德市著名的克兰布鲁克学院，年轻的罗姆尼周围都是汽车业高管的孩子。虽然其他孩子都开着庞蒂克的GTO和巡洋舰这样时髦的车，罗姆尼总是坚持开一辆漫步者，为了表明他父亲是美国汽车公司的CEO。他之前的同学吉姆·贝利说，对于他们那个年纪的青少年来说，（漫步者）“是全世界最不酷的车。”

2. A car accident helped strengthen his faith.
一起车祸帮助他增强了信念

Despite a rocky period as Mormon missionary in France—in addition to constant rejection by French locals uninterested in Mormonism, Romney was involved in a devastating car accident that nearly killed him—the presidential candidate reflects on his time abroad as a defining moment that solidified his faith. As journalists Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write in The Real Romney, "Having begun his mission with what he called thin ties to the faith, he became a stalwart believer."
罗姆尼曾经在法国做过摩门教的传教士，度过了一段困难的时期：他一直被对摩门教不感兴趣的法国人拒绝，之后一场可怕的车祸差点要了他的命。而我们的总统候选人则认为，在国外的这段时期是他信念形成的决定性时期。记者迈克尔·克拉尼希和斯科特·海曼在《真实的罗姆尼》中写道，“尽管最初他所做的事并未包含多少信念，他逐渐成为了一个信念坚定的人。”

3. He's a picky eater.
他是一个挑食的人

One of everyone's favorite things to follow election season is what our candidates eat along the campaign trail. This election season, we've learned a few things about Romney's eating habits:
大家在竞选期间最感兴趣的事之一就是我们的候选人在竞选过程中都吃些什么。这次大选期间，我们了解到了一些罗姆尼的饮食习惯：

One of his favorite foods is a peanut butter sandwich with honey;He likes pizza, but insists on scraping off the cheese before he even ever takes a bite. He likes fried chicken, but only when the skin has been removed; He prefers to eat only the tops of muffins, the logic here being that during cooking the butter and unhealthful lipids have melted down into the case.
他最爱的食物之一是加蜂蜜的花生酱三明治；他喜欢披萨，但吃之前一定要把奶酪去掉。他喜欢炸鸡，但一定要去皮。他喜欢巨无霸汉堡，那一定要去掉中间那层面包；他吃松饼时只爱吃最上面那一层，他的理论是在烹饪时黄油和不健康的油脂融化流到了最底层。

4. He's a fool for love.
他是一个为爱痴狂的人

As Romney's said many times on the campaign trail, his wife Ann is the love of his life. During his brief study at Stanford University, he went through extraordinary lengths to sneak back to Michigan and see Ann. Lovesick Mitt worried his parents with his erratic behavior. In one such occasion, reported in The Real Romney, "he drove nonstop from California to Michigan, showed up at Ann's home a sweaty mess, and dived fully into her pool."
罗姆尼在竞选时说过很多次，他的妻子安是他毕生挚爱。他在斯坦福大学短期学习期间，曾经长途跋涉溜回密歇根去和安见面。饱受相思苦的罗姆尼这种古怪的行为曾经让父母十分担心，在《真实的罗姆尼》中有这样的描述，“他马不停蹄地驾车从加利福利亚开到密歇根，大汗漓淋地出现在安家门前，一头栽进她的泳池里。”

5. He's a stickler for rules.
他是一个坚持原则的人

Jodi Kantor offered a unique glimpse of Romney the campaigner New York Times story, Romney's Faith, Silent but Deep: "Mr. Romney is quick to uphold rules great and small. During primary debates, when his rivals spoke our of turn or exceeded their allotted time, he would sometimes lecture them. When supporters ask Mr. Romney to sign dollar bills or American flags, he refuses and often gives them a little lesson about why doing so is illegal."
在《纽约时报》的文章《罗姆尼的信念，无声但深刻》中，乔迪·坎托向我们描绘了这位候选人独特的一面：“罗姆尼先生坚持大大小小的各种规则。在最初的辩论中，当他的对手抢了他发言的顺序或者超时的时候，他有时会指出来。当他的支持者要求他在美元钞票或者美国国旗上签名的时候，他会拒绝，而且通常会向他们说明为什么这么做是违法的。”