Looks like November will bring the tears of this clown.
Poor old, dear old, sad old Mitt. After a dismal party convention, the selection of a venal mini-Me as a running mate, a vicious and fact-free attack on the President’s response to a crisis, and a bumbling and alienating visit to our nation’s closest allies, it seemed like his campaign had sunk as far as it could. Surprise! Mitt had some more awful up his sleeves. Big thanks to my friends James Queale and Jennifer Carey and a host of other readers who are paying attention for helping me wade through the muck to compose this post.
Mother Jones magazine just released a full-length video of a speech that Romney gave at a private fundraiser. Cutting loose in a more off-the-cuff style while surrounded by wealthy Republicans — a safe audience for Mitt — the candidate accidentally gave the best GOP standup performance since Clint Eastwood lost an argument to a chair.
The Internet has mostly been abuzz over Romney’s simultaneous insult and dismissal of the mythical 47%:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…[M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
Two big problems, there, Mitt. (Okay, more, but let’s focus on two.) First, most of the supposed non-taxpayers DO pay into Social Security and Medicare — I guess that would end if you were President, so let’s give you a pass there — or are retirees who paid their fair share for DECADES. The “non-payer” myth is a dogwhistle to your cronies and more than ironic for a candidate who won’t bother to tell us what HE has paid. Second, your assertion that you “don’t need” that 47% because they’ll never support you is more than a little ironic. The top states for “non-payer” rates as defined by Romney include bright-red MS, AL, GA, ID, TX, AK, SC… The states with the lowest “freeloader” rate include bright blue MA, CT, MD, WA… Irony much, Mitt?
Sadly, that damning assertion is really only the tip of the crapberg floating in Mitt’s sea of bile. Managing to go racist, birther, and uber-patriot all in one blow, he bemoans his performance with the Latino population, saying of his father, “Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot of winning this.” You’d have a better shot of winning if you weren’t a self-important ass with complete disdain for most of America, Mitt. He doubles down on this language later with the even more charm-free statement, “If the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting bloc has in the past, than we’re in trouble as a party, and I think, as a nation.”
Here are a few other choice moments for those of you who don’t have the stomach for the whole performance:
- On foreign labor, Bain-style capitalism, and China policy: “When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. […] and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers. And, and, we said gosh! I can’t believe that you, you know, keep these girls in! They said, no, no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in.”
- Regarding his expert on ladyparts and women’s issues, his wife Ann: “”We’re using Ann sparingly right now because we don’t want people to get sick of her.” (NOTE TO MITT: You might try that strategy with yourself…)
- On his ability to deal with Mideast politics, he asserts that the Palestinians have “no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish,” and then asserts that his strategy as President would be to “kick the ball down the field.”
- On President Obama’s success with the international community: “The president’s foreign policy, in my opinion, is formed in part by a perception he has that his magnetism, and his charm, and his persuasiveness is so compelling that he can sit down with people like Putin and Chavez and Ahmadinejad and that they’ll find that we’re such wonderful people that they’ll go on with us, and they’ll stop doing bad things.” (Clearly being charming and persuasive is pretty alien to Mitt.)
The content is shocking enough on its own. What is particularly disturbing is the context. All the rest of lies, gaffes, stumbles, slights, slurs, and idiocies we’ve heard from Romney have been public, planned events. This event was a $50,000 per plate fundraiser of like-minded folks. Romney is revealing a clear, candid (for him) portrait of how he really thinks — and what he thinks of America. Wow! This is a portrait of a true Racist!
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Tags: 1%, 47%, African Americans, bigotry, Black voters, Class War, elitism, fundraiser, GOP, HIspanic Voters, hypocrisy, Islamophobia, Latino, Mexicans, misogyny, Mitt Romney, Occupy, Racism, Republicans, vote, voters, War on women
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