Mitt Romney committed another gaffe this morning while he was talking to Soledad O’Brien of CNN. Now, some people are going to say that he’s being taken out of context, but I want to focus on the first one and a half sentences. Here’s how he started:
“By the way, I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor…” –Mitt Romney, February 1st, 2012
What’s the logical implication of that juxtaposition? What does that tell you about how Mitt Romney’s mind works? He cares about Americans, not the very poor. To me, that was the most damning part of the whole thing. I think he realized that what he had said didn’t sound right, so he continued on to say he was not concerned about the very rich, either.
But the logic of his argument didn’t improve.
Romney says, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich…. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”
O’Brien asked him to clarify his remarks saying, “There are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say, ‘That sounds odd.'”
Romney continues, “We will hear from the Democrat party, the plight of the poor…. You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus…. The middle income Americans, they’re the folks that are really struggling right now and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them.”
You can watch the whole thing here. He talks about wanting to look out for retirees on a fixed income and people who can’t find a job and parents who are trying to save for college expenses. He says these are “middle income Americans” and that they are the ones who have been “really struggling” as a result of Obama’s policies. His campaign is going to be all about helping these middle income folks, and not the poor.
I could attack Romney’s comments in any number of ways. CabinGirl’s reaction was priceless. She said he wasn’t focused on the poor because they couldn’t afford the photo ID they now need to register to vote. But it’s the logical error that is most confounding. How do you remain “middle income” if you don’t have a job? How does living off your Social Security check provide a “middle income”? How are “middle income” people struggling more than “low income” people?
His entire argument is confusing.
What he seems to be saying is that there are a lot of people out there who want to work and are accustomed to a middle class way of life, and then there is a giant underclass of permanently unemployed poor people that he doesn’t give a shit about.
I guess that’s not an uncommon way of looking at the world if you travel in conservative circles, but it’s not very attractive and it isn’t usually expressed so clearly by presidential candidates.
I think there’s another more plausible explanation. He said VERY poor, not poor. This is another code for black, and he’s feeding the race resentments of working class whites, as Republicans always do. Those people are not concerned about the very poor either, since they believe that govt resources that should by all rights help them are being spent on the undeserving. This is in essence why an anti-tax message to working class whites works as well.
That’s what I heard as well. Maybe I’ve been reading Balloon Juice for too many years, but when I saw that I thought of one of DougJ’s posts about all the new and inventive ways of saying ‘young bucks’ and ‘Cadillacs’.
When Romney says “I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling,” he implies that the very poor are too lazy to struggle. All part of the dogwhistle.
Whomever the programmer is for the Romneybot9000 needs to be fired.
We need to use this in every ad, every minute if-when-he wins the primary. He’ll be walking back this statement probably by this afternoon.
What a dumbass.
What the Republicans want to deny is that the middle class barely exists anymore. The people who do find themselves in the middle class are struggling to stay there–and just one bad thing away from losing their place.
It is always a question as to why so many people would vote against their economic interests for a Republican whose policies would make it tougher to achieve the basics of food, shelter, health care, education, and transportation. I think it has to do with denial. To recognize and admit that the system is now so rigged against ordinary folks, that our lives are so precarious economically because of policies intentionally crafted to benefit a small group of wealthy individuals is just too painful and infuriating. It is far preferable to believe that people want to be poor, don’t want to work, want to mooch, are on public assistance just so they can do drugs, etc. It is far preferable to believe this than the reality that their heroes like Ronald Reagan sold them out.
Meh. This is Romney being Romney, i.e. pandering his ass off. Any number of studies show that most people, regardless of income and including the somewhat wealthy and the fairly poor, think of themselves as “middle class.” He’s talking to this attitude rather than the facts on the ground, and because of this attitude, I don’t think this “gaffe” will resonate much.
Who is the “middle class”? Who are middle income earners? Someone who works at Staples, according to Chris Christie, has a good middle class job. This just isn’t so. This is a gaffe. Most people think themselves hard-working and still not “middle class.” This quote points up how insensitive Mitt is to those who barely early enough to get by.
Median income in the US is down to around $26,000 per year. That is what–a little less than half a day’s income for Mitt Romney?!
How the hell are people going to sustain a middle class lifestyle on $26,000 or less per year??
Minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Gross pay for a minimum wage job-full time for 52 weeks is $15,080. I would love to see Gov. Christie try and raise a family on that income.
And why do our fearless journalists never ask basic follow up questions when these politicians say such callous things. Someone should have asked Christie how $290 (and this is gross pay!!! before payroll taxes) per week would make it possible to live a middle class lifestyle?
No doubt that the very poor anxiously await Mitt’s fixing of the social safety net, and I do mean anxious.
And “fixing,” in the sense you might have your dog or cat “fixed.”
When Romney said “fixing” my Republican translator said “eliminating”
A corporate perspective may allow for choosing vendors to work with but this is a fundamental difference between being a CEO of a parasite venture capitalist corp and the President of the US who must, by very definition, represent the interests of all the people.
Mitt is attempting to get the vast majority who view themselves as “working class” to focus their anger downward at those who are even poorer than them by implying that the even poorer are taking something away from the working class. (The “even poorer” are those who don’t have jobs and is perhaps a racially coded reference to those who don’t want jobs, those shiftless blacks.) In reality the working class should rightly focus its anger upward at those who are taking the ever greater share of the USA’s wealth and destroying the working class’s future and the working class’s children’s future. In general there is a great need to sharpen the focus on class and class struggle.
Hoosier “middle class” visiting their beloved legislators and governor in downtown Indy this morning. Photos by Stand Up For Hoosiers.
RTW for less approved today by the Indiana Senate by a 4 vote margin.
No way this was a gaffe. This was a preview. He’s going to flip 99% v 1% to 95% v 4%. It’ll be us makers against those takers. And despite having no money and no power they helped Obama ruin everything we real Murcans hold dear. And the Establishment press will transcribe and re-broadcast every word of it without a qualm or a quibble.
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I’m certain Mitt doesn’t give a d** about the middle-class either, just the fellow raiders on Wall Street. For many evangelicals, wealth and income are blessings from the Lord. Specifics of tithing and the best kept secret of the LDS church.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."someone needs to ask Willard to explain the difference between the POOR and the VERY POOR.
do the POOR not need a safety net?
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."May be that the most sensible element we can do right now is to maintain every possible not enough oil we have…until we do not need it any more, and it becomes a way of Ideal Money Arrange that can help strengthen the us and decrease the country huge costs in the years to come, both as well.
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