“My
job is not to worry about these people.
I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility
and care for their lives.” Mitt Romney, at a $50,000 a plate
fund-raiser, speaking of 47% of Americans who he said, “pay no income tax … are
dependent on government … believe that
they are victims … believe the government has a responsibility to take care of
them … believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to
you name it.”
Jim Messina, Obama Campaign Manager, said
“it’s shocking that a candidate for the president of the United States would go
behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the
American people view themselves as ‘victims’, entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take
‘personal responsibility’ for their lives.
It’s hard to serve as President for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully
written off half the nation.”
The Romney campaign put out a statement
from communications director Gail Gitcho:
“Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama
economy.” [Actually, Romney’s exact
words were “my job is not to worry about
these people.”] Gitchko continued: “ As the governor has
made clear all year he is concerned about the growing number of people who are
dependent on the Federal Government, including the record number of people who
are on food stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million
who are struggling to find work. “
Again, Romney’s exact words were “my job is not to worry about these people.”
The Tax Policy Center stated that 46.4% paid
no federal income tax but most households did pay payroll tax. So they are being responsible. Why
would Romney want to lie about that? Of
the 18% of households that pay neither federal nor payroll tax, nearly half
were elderly and more than a third of income tax credits went to children and
the working poor. THE WORKING POOR. Again, people who are being responsible. Perhaps Mr. Romney believes children shouldn’t
be dependents.
It gets better. Many of
the seniors who benefit from the current tax policy are likely Romney voters. The Republican share of votes among white
seniors which had increased to a whopping 58% by 2008. Eight of the top income states with the
lowest tax liability are red states. So first
Romney either outright lied about the 47%, or he didn’t check his facts. Then he insulted his own following. What a great campaigner.
Not content to leave it at that, he held a
late night availability with so little notice that none of the news
organisations could tape it live. Either
that was a lack of foresight or it was really excellent planning in case he
made another gaffe. Which he did. “It’s
not elegantly stated, let me put it that way …
I’m sure I could state it more clearly and in a more effective way than
I did in a setting like that. At a
fundraiser you have people say ‘governor how you gonna win this?’ and so I
respond ‘well the president has his group and I have my group.
‘I wanna keep my team strong and motivated
and I wanna get those people in the middle.’
That’s something fundraisers who are parting with their money are very
interested in, can you win or not, and that’s what this was addressing.” In other words, what I said wasn’t really the truth, and heck, you have to tell your
potential backers what they want to hear, regardless of whether it’s the truth
or not. Anything to get their money.
What better way to end this than with Howell
Raines who said (Special to CNN, September 18 2012) “Since the GOP convention,
Romney has been getting blasted by his ought-to-be fellow travelers, notably
the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, and freelance radio
right-wingers. Where others have bludgeoned the Republican nominee, Fox News
has nibbled, as if to indicate that telling the real, whole news would let too
much water through the Titanic-like hole in the U.S.S. Romney.
In an energetic follow-up to Politico on
his morning show, Joe Scarborough said he was the first high-profile media
conservative to announce that Romney is blowing a winnable election and that
Limbaugh et al followed him in defining Romney's damning new persona: a CEO who
says American needs a CEO, but who is publicly failing at being CEO of his own
billion-dollar campaign.”
The pitch for my Indiegogo Campaign
