The reason the Romney campaign is now curtains is not the tone of those disdainful things he said about struggling Americans when he was behind closed doors with campaign contributors in Florida. We already knew that Romney views less fortunate people as losers and parasites.
The reason the video kills what remains of his bid for the White House is because of what it tells us about his understanding of the basic facts of the American situation: He thinks there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the economy, and there are plenty of lucrative opportunities out there for anyone willing to work for them.
That misunderstanding collides too directly with nearly every perspective a voter might bring to the polls, regardless of their partisan identification, their age, their gender, their race or their ideology.
Until now, the campaign has featured a sharp divide over policy prescriptions but not so much over descriptions of the state of play. Romney has sought to hand Obama responsibility for a bleak economy. Obama has argued that Romney would take us back to worse. But the basic inadequacy of economic opportunity has not been challenged.
But what Romney just got caught saying on video is that everything is pretty much fine. If it's not fine for you and your family, that's your own whiny fault. Publicly, he blames Obama for monkey-wrenching free enterprise, as if it's the president's fault that the economy is such a mess. Privately -- in front of people who own yachts and humidors -- he blames those who are not doing well for their own struggles.
Given how many are not doing well -- 80 percent of the workforce has seen their wages decline in real terms over the last quarter-century, and the average household has seen 40 percent of its wealth disappear during the Great Recession -- this is politically incendiary stuff. It lumps together people who have never missed a day of work in their lives with the worst stereotypical version of a welfare queen living on the public dole. Goodbye, Mitt. Go and pursue your own opportunities in the private sector.
Ezra Klein has adroitly handled the factual vacuity of Romney's claim that roughly half the country pays no taxes, noting that almost two-thirds of these people were working last year and handed over payroll taxes, making their effective tax burden -- 15.3 percent -- higher than Romney's 13.9 percent.
But forget those facts for a second and focus on the implications of Romney's message. In an America where nearly half the population is content to mooch off the government -- paying no taxes while using their food stamps for caviar and their Section 8 vouchers for suites at the Four Seasons -- the policy solution is straightforward: Yank the safety net and make those parasites go get one of those fabulous jobs just lying around for the taking.
By selecting as his vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, who wants to gut Medicaid, and by broadcasting a fact-free attack on Obama that centers on claims that the president wants to unleash welfare checks like confetti, Romney has already let us know that he regards the poor as deadbeats. These toxic comments at the fundraiser in Florida tell us that he sees the middle class in similar terms.
He simply does not grasp that tens of millions of Americans make so little from their jobs that they pay no federal income taxes. He does not get that many people are saturated in debt and require help to get housing, health care and groceries -- not because they are lazy or morally degenerate or carry a sense of entitlement, but because their paychecks are inadequate.
For Romney's campaign, the video has produced a fatal narrative, one that adds momentum to others of its type in crucial pieces of the geography.
Those people who used to work in factories in Michigan and Ohio, where they earned enough to support their families but who now work at Walmart earning enough to qualify for food stamps, Romney just branded them lazy.
Those homeowners who are upside-down in Florida and Nevada and Colorado because someone lost a job that had health benefits and took another that doesn't, which forced them to tap their home equity to cover an unplanned illness: They think society owes them happy days, Romney just said.
Those students whose parents do not earn enough to pay for college, so they have to borrow from a federally backed program to finance higher education: Romney just called them societal leeches.
We just got a glimpse of the America that Mitt Romney sees from his privileged perch, one where anyone unable to attend a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser simply hasn't tried hard enough. That's too much of a contrast from the America in which most people live. It's going to be hard to explain to regular people.
Which is why this is the end of the Romney candidacy.
Follow Peter S. Goodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/petersgoodman
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81618.html
So, while the Democratic majority was able the pass important laws such as the Affordable Care Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Republican obstructionism gained the necessary proportion need to shut down any Democratic legislation in the Senate six months after President Obama became president.
Those of the NRC who have served up this presidential ticket need to read what is written above the door: NATIONAL Republican Party, not ELITIST Republican Party.
"....one of Romney’s sons, knowing that his father was a hard worker, said that next to him, “Everyone else was lazy.”
This ties in perfectly with my gut perception of Willard from the very beginning....that he sees absolutely NO value in another human being if they aren't rich or on the way to being rich. To him, money is everything, it's how he measures success.
All he ever talks about is "small businesses and entrepreneurs". It's as if the other 99.9 percent of us simply don't even blip on his radar. In his world, there is no value to bus drivers, teachers, firemen, restaurant workers, the lady who sells you your tags at the county courthouse. This article really hit the nail on the head too, about the fact that Willard seems to think there are just opportunities laying around for the taking, if only the pesky lazy moochers would get up off their lazy moocher arses and take them.
Willard has no understanding of that good old standby, Mazlow's hierarchy of needs. Millions of us right now are just trying to survive at the bottom of the pyramid on basic physiological needs and safety. Many are one mini-disaster away from major disaster.
Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/01/18/The-Real-Mitt-Romney-What-You-Didnt-Know.aspx#XBufeszpl0PRO6FM.99
Wait...isn't that disenfranchisement, and isn't it what the libs are accusing the cons of doing when they support voter I.D.?
That 47% tape was the final straw. You can spin it however much you want but WE KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT. You see you now have a record. You wanted the American car industry to go bankrupt. You are two-faced, robotic and cynical and would say anything to become president. This is evidenced by the fact that you rejected ObamaCare then last week you said you will keep most or parts of ObamaCare. See what I mean? Nobody knows where you stand on anything. It's one thing one day, another thing another day. Our economy is not a business or a balance sheet. It is lives and people working toward a common goal, justice. We won’t get fooled again!
Mitt Romney wants to lead America --but how can he do that when he really doesn't even see it.