The most fun thing to me about the controversy over the release of a secretly recorded video of Mitt Romney denigrating 47% of all voters as welfare queens who would never vote for him has been watching how his campaign has tried to deal with the blowback from those statements. To call it an epic disaster is to be too kind.
First, the campaign put out a statement that said, in part:
“Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy. 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 Americans who are struggling to find work.”
Well yes, he’s “concerned” about them and he “wants to help” them — he just doesn’t think it’s his job “to worry about those people” because he’ll “never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Sure, that makes sense.
When that statement did little to settle the situation, they quickly arranged an impromptu press conference for Romney himself to address the growing controversy. He tried to defend what he said, but admitted that it wasn’t “elegantly stated” — like it would have been different if he’d had his pinky pointed up. And his defense was similarly ham-handed:
“I am talking about a political process of drawing people in my campaign. … My campaign is about helping people take more responsibility,” Romney said.
“This is ultimately a question about the direction of the country. Do you believe in a government-centered society that provides more and more benefits? Or do you believe instead in a free-enterprise society where people are able to pursue their dreams?”
Yes, because the moment Obama was elected the free enterprise system was magically transformed into government ownership of the means of production and people were forbidden by law to “pursue their dreams.” This is just drivel.
28 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
fastlane
September 20, 2012 at 1:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, talk about a horrible use of false dichotomy, that Mittens is always finding new and improved ways to use logical fallacies.
I’m curious. If one examined the 20 countries at the top of the best living conditions, life expectancy, etc., we already know they have some of the highest tax rates. I’d be curious to see how their economies rank in terms of being a “a free-enterprise society where people are able to pursue their dreams?”
DaveL
September 20, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Amusing in the canting sense, yes. From Cpt. Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811:
Michael Heath
September 20, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Republicans have to lie, and now nearly all the time. This is the first sentence of their statement, in response to a previous lie, where this statement ignores Republican culpability when they were in power in the 2000s and Republican obstructionism in the Senate. Obstructionism that successfully thwarted the implementation of sufficient expansionary fiscal policy during the Obama Administration.
Ed writes:
I don’t think this is up to your standards Ed, it reminds me of Republicans claiming that President Obama said business owners “didn’t build that”. Mr. Romney wasn’t claiming he cared not a whit for the 47% though we can confident that’s true, instead he was asserting he didn’t need to market himself towards that group.
Of course what he said is also incoherent since a big share of the 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes* are Republicans critical to the success of his campaign, particularly white retires living on a fixed income that don’t make enough beyond social security to pay any federal income taxes. Where he’s absolutely marketing himself towards that key demographic, as is Fox News.
ashleybell
September 20, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So Obama gets to benefit from ‘leaked’ information while Manning is tortured for it and Assange is just waiting to be nabbed. I’m glad for this greatest of all Romney gaffes so far, but I’d like to see the courtesy extended this leak to all whistleblowers.
matty1
September 20, 2012 at 1:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In order to avoid doing something else I looked at this, comparing the top 20 countries in the UN Human Development Index with the top 20 from the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.
No country has the exact same ranking in both but the overlap is considerable (and more than I expected) with nine countries in both lists -Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and United States.
Interesting to note that although the Heritage Foundation has a reputation for being economic conservatives even they don’t seem to count the existence of a welfare state in many of those countries as making them ‘economically unfree’
skeptifem
September 20, 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They can’t apologize but they can’t defend it either, so what is left? A whole bunch of buzz words and empty phrases, apparently.
Gregory in Seattle
September 20, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I find it amusing that he, of all people, would talk about personal responsibility. Then again, he never uses the phrase in the first person.
Sastra
September 20, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Romney’s campaign staff needs to take a cue from people caught accidentally making bigoted remarks to someone in the group they’re making remarks about. Try a new slogan:
Mitt Romey: “Oh, But Of Course I Didn’t Mean YOU!”
njosprey
September 20, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“They can’t apologize but they can’t defend it either, so what is left? A whole bunch of buzz words and empty phrases, apparently.”
Add in numerous distortions and lies and that about sums up Romney’s entire campaign.
d cwilson
September 20, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rommey’s statement really gives a deeper window into his fundamental character flaw. He says it’s not his job to worry about the 47% because they won’t vote for him. That’s it. He isn’t concerned about their needs because their isn’t any benefit to him. That’s how he seems to view every situation: What’s in it for Mitt.
We saw this attitude on display in his response to the attacks in Libya. Where most people saw the tragedy of four dead Americans, Mitt saw an opportunity to score some political points.
Chiroptera
September 20, 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gregory in Seattle, #7: I find it amusing that he, of all people, would talk about personal responsibility. Then again, he never uses the phrase in the first person.
That’s not unusual. Usually when people talk about “personal responsibility,” they’re talking about other people’s responsibility.
Michael Heath
September 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
d cwilson writes:
Mr. Romney is providing ample opportunities for reasonable people to convincingly discredit his character and his fitness for office, we don’t need to stretch statements beyond their most obvious meaning. In this case Mr. Romney never argued in that video about how he’d govern over the “parasites” as GOP spokesperson Mary Matalin called them, instead he was obviously referring to who he needed to market himself towards in the campaign. I noted previously the defectiveness of that supposed strategy in my earlier post:
Chiroptera
September 20, 2012 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Or do you believe instead in a free-enterprise society where people are able to pursue their dreams?”
Yeah. My mom was able to pursue her dreams of waiting on tables.
On the other hand, she had to rely on government run Medicare to pursue her dreams of not dying of cancer, so there is that.
plutosdad
September 20, 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think his “worry” statement is about the election, not after he gets into office.
I am not saying he WILL care about those people, but it seems pretty clear to me that he meant he is not worrying about marketing to those 47%, he is not even trying to get the poor to vote for him.
(well technically, it’s poor minorities, he still wants poor whites to vote for him, but the GOP uses immigration and tough-on-crime laws to attract them)
John Hinkle
September 20, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, you mean there’s nothing in between?
Stevarious
September 20, 2012 at 3:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
FTFH.
Jordan Genso
September 20, 2012 at 3:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath earlier:
and later:
I normally try to err on the side of giving someone the benefit of the doubt before criticising statements they made (and their meaning), but I think you’re giving Romney too much leeway on this one. The one crucial statement that Romney made that reveals it wasn’t just about having his campaign ignore 47% of the population was when he said he’ll:
That’s not saying he’ll never convince them to vote for him, and so there’s no reason to try and win their votes; it’s saying there is no reason to try and help them, which is reflective of how he would govern.
That statement is what shows his position. And it is that he identifies 47% of the population as viewing themselves as “victims”, whereas he feels they are actually responsible for their lot in life, and that lot will never change no matter what. If elected President, he would therefore have no need to care about the impact of policy on them, since there’s nothing he can do to help them.
His statement reveals that he hasn’t just given up on them as potential votes, he’s given up on them as humans who can have better lives.
Michael Heath
September 20, 2012 at 4:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Jordan quotes Mitt Romney:
The Obama campaign smartly responded within 24 hours of this quote with an ad showing ‘people on the street’ responding to it. This is easily the most objectionable insult Mr. Romney made, besides the lies which chaps my ass the most and should be disqualification for all candidates. That includes Barack Obama though in fairness to Mr. Obama, he only occasionally lies whereas Mitt Romney and the entire GOP rely almost entirely on lies.
And even this quote is a lie since it includes, for example, working college students who aren’t making enough to pay federal income taxes; how is that not, “taking personal responsibility and care for their lives”? These young people also effectively pay federal income taxes, as do all consumers, that’s by way of their purchase of goods and services which includes the federal income tax that the supply chain is liable for embedded in its price, which is IIRC, about 17% of the purchase price.
Modusoperandi
September 20, 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This “47%” thing is too unspecific. It’s a net that could end up catching those smart enough to realize that they are in that percentage, but aren’t partisan enough to deny that fact for the party line.
The old phrasing was better. You know, the one about the “young bucks buying steaks with food stamps” and “Cadillac driving welfare queens”. Now those were dogwhistles you could wrap your resentment around!
marcus
September 20, 2012 at 5:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
fastlane @ 1 “Mittens is always finding new and improved ways to use logical fallacies.”
This might be my new bumper sticker, “Logical Fallacy thy name is Mitt!”
gshelley
September 20, 2012 at 7:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I said this elsewhere, but most of his attempts at defence, such as he wants to promote investment and free enterprise are just the sort of thing Obama would say. I don’t know if he is delusional enough to think Obama really is against these things, or he is hoping his audience is ignorant enough to believe it.
Noadi
September 20, 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m angry at how Manning has been treated, it’s not right. However it’s also not right to compare leaking classified information and leaking a video of a fundraiser. The difference? The video is in no way illegal, while what Manning did was (regardless of how justified I think she was).
Assange is different, yeah it’s clear the zeal the charges are being pursued is for political reasons but it’s also not okay to sexually assault people (which he’s pretty much admitted). He’s a case of someone who does brilliant things also being reprehensible in other way, like Roman Polanski.
martinc
September 20, 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Noadi @ 22:
Noadi, can you explain your “he’s pretty much admitted” addendum? That certainly doesn’t accord with what I’ve seen Assange say. He’s admitted to having consensual sex only. He co-operated with the police, was interviewed, was allowed to leave the country, and only quite a while after that was a warrant issued and extradition sought. The clear implication is that the latter two events were instigated by US pressure on Sweden unrelated to the sexual assault charges.
Incidentally, it is my understanding that what he was charged with is not a crime in either USA or Australia.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven
September 20, 2012 at 10:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s generalizing from his ears.
dan4
September 21, 2012 at 12:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@14: You left off the “never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives” portion of Romney’s comment folling the “worry about these people” bit…which clearly indicates the latter comment is referencing a time after he gets into office.
lofgren
September 21, 2012 at 12:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think it’s true that he was literally referring to the election and getting those people to vote for him.
However, I don’t believe he should be excused because of that. Obviously there are the simple and obvious factual errors – of the 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes, a lot of them are Republicans who will vote for him.
But in addition to that, subtextually, I think this really does reveal a lot about how Romney thinks.
The error of mistaking the 47% who do not pay income taxes with the 47% who support Obama shows a bias towards simple thinking. Two numbers show up in two places – they must represent the same thing. But OK, that’s a pretty typical error for people to make if they are not paying close attention. It’s possible that some aid was coaching him before the show, threw out those two figures as part of the prep, and Romney confused them in the heat of the moment. I would actually be willing to give him a pass on that if it was the only objectionable thing about the speech (and he moved to correct himself quickly).
But what worries me more is the clear “us vs. them” mentality. He says, “I will never get them to take responsibility for their lives.” This is atrocious, and it would be shocking if we all didn’t suspect it already. In this statement, Romney attributes the failure of the 47% to earn enough to pay federal income tax as moral failing. That’s despicable enough. But he also indicates that he does not believe that there is fluidity across this divide. It’s not that these people fell below some arbitrary income line this year – their failure is the result of a persistent character weakness.
And I think it is fair to put this statement in the context of traditional Randian/conservative talking points. After all, a key element of that philosophy is that poverty represents a moral failing, an attitude that Romney clearly ascribes to. In that context, it’s not hard to make the tiny step to the conclusion that Romney really does view those who do not make enough to pay income taxes as a contemptible, distrustful “other.” In his view, at least for the length of this speech, what separates Mitt Romney and his country club pals from those of us who don’t pay income taxes is not a few million dollars and some teeth whitener, it’s a whole worldview and moral outlook. The Romneys of the world are virtuous, trustworthy, and responsible… and the 47% are lazy, whiny, and frivolous.
If his statement were factually correct – if the 47% of voters who don’t pay income tax were the same 47% who support Obama – then it would actually be harder to extrapolate this from his statement because, obviously, Mitt Romney and many Democrats do have stark differences in their worldview and moral outlook. And we’re just as likely to ascribe moral failings to Romney because of those differences. He’s greedy. He’s selfish. He’s entitled. He doesn’t care about poor people, etc. It is his readiness to conflate the two statistics that reveals just how contemptible he believes the 47% to be, and just how much he views them as an obstacle rather than as people.
So I’ll grant that his statement “My job is to not worry about those people” was in reference to his job of winning the campaign. I don’t think that remotely lets him off the hook for the speech. Even without that sentence, it’s still disconcerting.
I’ll even grant that his statement, “I’ll never be able to make them take responsibility for their lives,” was in reference to his status as a candidate. Maybe he does believe that “those people” can be rehabilitated through his policies, once he becomes president. But I think that actually raises more difficult questions for him. If not paying income tax leads to not taking responsibility for yourself… how do you get people to take responsibility for themselves?
dingojack
September 21, 2012 at 4:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Remember when Mittens said: ‘no-one doubts where he was born’ [but my opponent on the other hand...]. The common response was: ‘we have been shown the actual evidence of where your opponent was born Mittens, any chance of showing us the actual evidence of your tax returns?’
Now he’s opened himself up to ‘so if you’ve only paid 13% at most in taxes does that make you less than half as responsible as the middle-class workers that paid twice as much?’
Are the Republicans deliberately throwing the contest or are they really this stupid?
Dingo
kermit.
September 21, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Willard Scissorshands: “I will never get them to take responsibility for their lives.”
So… does this mean that the economy is not Obama’s fault?
It jsut that several million people decided simultaneously and spontaneously to live the good life, kickin’ back on welfare, unemployment, and food stamps.
Typical rightwing inconsistencies.
The unemployed are lazy, but it is the Democrats’ fault.
Government handouts to the poor discourage them from working, but government handouts to the rich encourage them to work.
Increasing government spending destroys jobs, but decreasing the military budget destroys jobs.
Bush isn’t responsible for the economy because it was a bad time for the economy, but Clinton wasn’t responsible for the economy, because it was a good year for it anyway.
That murderer is trying to use “society” as an excuse, because he’s not accepting responsibility for his behavior. But if I had raised him, he’d be a decent young man now.
Fetuses are sacred, but babies are their parents’ responsibilities.