Yet Another Romney Gaffe

[Kalalau]

Wow, somebody had a video camera going when Romney spoke to wealthy supporters in Florida last May. You have probably already seen the video, its him accusing 47 % of the population that does not pay federal income tax of being worthless parasites who do not "take responsibility for their own lives." So how many of them are people who had their jobs taken away by Romney and others like him in the vulture capital business, and shipped overseas? How many of them had their pensions that they had responsibly stashed away over their working lives stolen by Romney and people like him? Children rarely pay income taxes, some millionaires don't pay taxes, some people work but do not earn enough to pay anything other than their payroll taxes and of course sales taxes. Some are elderly people on Social Security and Medicare and although the Republicans made it possible for people like Romney to steal their pensions, they still haven't been able to steal their Social Security and Medicare. Yet. But they keep working on it. I have always known certain politicians think of the people they represent, oh I mean "represent", in such contemptuous terms but to actually hear it expressed so clearly. Its stunning. Your thoughts?

[tutusue]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

This makes it even more imperitive for Romney to reveal those tax returns he's so cautiously guarding.

[GregLee]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

It's completely unsurprising that Romney said those things to an audience of rich Republicans. It's how Republican business people think, and Romney, being a person of little integrity, will say whatever his current audience wants to hear. He might or might not believe it -- no way to tell.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

A lesson Romney may have learned from this: don't dis that 47% while they are still serving you drinks.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

It's completely unsurprising that Romney said those things to an audience of rich Republicans. It's how Republican business people think, and Romney, being a person of little integrity, will say whatever his current audience wants to hear. He might or might not believe it -- no way to tell.

If you want an audience to dig deeper into their pockets and contribute to your campaign coffer, then ya gotta dish out ear candy to the crowd. So that was what Romney did. But he did it in a careless way,... and someone with a video camera caught it.

Of course, ear-tickling isn't something that only Republicans engage in. Or do people here have such short memories so as to have forgotten about the stir caused by Obama characterizing small towners in Pennsylvania as folks who cling to guns and religion at a private fundraiser in San Francisco.

[matapule]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

i

Or do people here have such short memories so as to have forgotten about the stir caused by Obama characterizing small towners in Pennsylvania as folks who cling to guns and religion at a private fundraiser in San Francisco.

Oh, but you take it out of context. Romoney said in the video that those 47% who don't pay taxes and use government services were unimportant to him, he wasn't going to help them (since I and everyone else on this Board uses some form of government services, that means us). If you had quoted Obama's entire remark he said something entirely different than Romoney:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress, uh, when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in, in, Pennsylvania, a lot, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced 'em. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to their guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or ... uh, anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

So play fair Frankie. What Obama said is something that should not cause a stir if his remarks were read in context.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

So play fair Frankie. What Obama said is something that should not cause a stir if his remarks were read in context.

I completely stand by what I said. No matter the complete context and explanation of Obama's statement regarding "guns and religion," he would not have said it if he had known that he was being recorded.

Romney put his foot in his mouth when he didn't know that he was being recorded. So did Obama. I don't know what goes on in your mind when it comes to playing fair, but for me, it doesn't involve having a selective memory about these things.

And this is coming from someone who voted for Obama-Biden in '08.

[Menehune Man]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

Hey there FM... I gotta go with Matapule on this one.
And you truly don't see the difference?

[GregLee]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

Or do people here have such short memories so as to have forgotten about the stir caused by Obama characterizing small towners in Pennsylvania as folks who cling to guns and religion at a private fundraiser in San Francisco.

I'm sure many here do remember that very well, and I've seen the comparison discussed several times today. Chris Matthews pointed out that the moral Obama drew back then was that special effort would be necessary to get as many votes as possible from those not part of his natural constituency, while Romney seems to have entirely written off "those people", the government moochers, as being beyond the pale. A message of unity versus one of division.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

Hey there FM... I gotta go with Matapule on this one.
And you truly don't see the difference?

I guess that both of you have squarely missed my point, then.

My point isn't about the full context of Obama's statement. It is simply this: If Obama had to do it over again, he wouldn't have said that anyone was clinging to guns and religion. That's it. Whatever the explanation and context of that soundbite, it was a distraction that the Obama campaign had to deal with for a few weeks in the '08 election cycle.

Now if anyone wants to go into a detailed extrapolation into Obama's full speech at that SF fundraiser and compare it to Romney, then go ahead and have fun beating up on your own strawman.

[Kalalau]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

A lot of Republican supporters will find it difficult to accept that Romney was talking about them. It will be hard for them to accept that the party they have supported for so long has, behind their backs, considered them parasites. The tape makes so much clear. It shows a kind of pathology: dehumanizing the victims. If you don't think of as humans the people whose pensions and life savings you are stealing it makes the stealing much easier-the mortgage meltdown fraud for example. Or letting wounded veterans lie in their own filth so taxes can be cut for billionaires. Closing factories and shipping jobs overseas. None of those people count. Not a bit. Victims stop being people like your mom and dad and become marks, mere objects. Criminals have that sort of pathology, for some reason they can't understand that the people they are hurting are people exactly like themselves. Denial is the usual response to a realization of betrayal like the Romney tapes show.

[GregLee]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

Since Romney also can't hope to win a debate with Obama, his best strategy now is to stay in country clubs as much as possible for the final painful weeks of the campaign and hope that Obama has a stroke.

[matapule]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

A lot of Republican supporters will find it difficult to accept that Romney was talking about them. It will be hard for them to accept that the party they have supported for so long has, behind their backs, considered them parasites.

I guess that Mitzi considers his own father a "lost cause."

Mitt Romney had harsh words for welfare recipients in a hidden-camera videotape from a May fundraiser that was leaked this week.
But his own father was once among public aid recipients.
As the Globe has previously reported, George Romney’s family fled from Mexico in 1912 to escape a revolution there, and benefited from a $100,000 fund established by Congress to help refugees who had lost their homes and most of their belongings.

That fund may have been what Lenore Romney, George Romney’s wife and Mitt Romney’s mother, was referring to in a video that was posted online earlier this month but has received renewed attention in the wake of Mitt Romney’s comments.

“[George Romney] was on welfare relief for the first years of his life. But this great country gave him opportunities,” Lenore Romney said in the video, which apparently dates back to George Romney’s 1962 run for governor of Michigan.

In Mitt Romney’s remarks at the May fundraiser, he said that 47 percent of people are dependent upon government, and described that segment of the population as a lost cause, both as prospective GOP voters and more generally.
“I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said.

[Kalalau]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

It seems Jimmy Carter's grandson helped publicize the now famous Romney video. Excellent. The Republicans have been cruelly and unjustifiably kicking around Jimmy Carter for over 30 years. There is a lesson here: do not bully people, do not abuse them, you never know how or when the opportunity may present itself for retribution. Republicans now see they would have been better off to just shut up about Jimmy Carter if they couldn't bring themselves to show him the respect he has deserved. But they are Republicans, they can't think into the future.

News just ran a video of Romney's mom speaking in the early 1960's saying how Mitt's dad George survived on government assistance in his younger days, and how much the family needed the help and appreciated it.

Even giving the most charitable possible interpretations to Romney's recent gaffeS, he has simply made too many of them. Its hard to believe he ran a successful business, he gives every indication of being a very loose cannon.

[salmoned]

Re: Yet Another Romney Gaffe

I guess that both of you have squarely missed my point, then.

My point isn't about the full context of Obama's statement. It is simply this: If Obama had to do it over again, he wouldn't have said that anyone was clinging to guns and religion. That's it. Whatever the explanation and context of that soundbite, it was a distraction that the Obama campaign had to deal with for a few weeks in the '08 election cycle.

That's a miniscule point to make - everyone, given foresight of the utterly bad results of their words would not 'repeat' them.
In essence, you're pointing out the obvious! BWOT