If ever you thought or believed, supposed or hoped that the Republicans were “on your side,” then you need to watch the attached video of Mitt Romney. David Corn, under the aegis of Mother Jones Magazine, has published this eye-opening video of Romney speaking to a small group of fat cat contributors. Romney apparently does not know he is being videotaped, and therefore feels free to let his hair down about his true feelings (or lack of feelings) for half the population of the United States of America. According to David Corn (and the clear sound and images on the tape), Romney “dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them.”
Let’s go to the videotape. Romney says point blank:
“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…These are people who pay no income tax. [M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Does this give you an idea as to whom Romney will “represent” should he be elected President of the United States? Does this tell you anything at all about whom and what he values as “important” and “necessary” in this nation-state? Does he not know, for example, that most of that 47 percent who “don’t pay taxes” are retired people, like me, who have paid exorbitantly high taxes all of their lives – in some cases, for 60 years? Or people who make $25,000 or less per year, and true, do not pay taxes because they don’t make enough money? Or, young children who make no money at all? Or, physically or mentally disabled people who simply cannot work?
As is being widely reported today, Romney’s campaign for the presidency is in virtual free fall. His staffers are known to be engaged in a virulent internecine war, while Republican leaders are publicly questioning not just his bona fides in terms of his “conservatism.” They are wondering out loud when he will tell even them what he plans to do as president.
There are now some 50 days to go. And the new “narrative” among the right wing punditocracy is that we must all just wait for the debates. Ahhh, the debates. There Romney will mop the floor with the young, uppity, whipper snapper, Barack Hussein Obama. Note, though, that they’ve been saying similar things, making similar predictions preceding each of Romney’s self-inflicted catastrophes: His trip overseas; his refusal to release his tax returns; his refusal to talk about his wonderful management of Bain Capital; his failure to even mention the military or the ongoing war in Afghanistan at the RNC; his blundering into the Libyan imbroglio without any real information or intelligence as to what was going on: “Shoot first, and then aim,” as Obama put it.
But, now we are to expect that all of these missteps, mistakes, miscalculations, mishaps will be washed away and forgotten if he can get a few Reagan-esq “There you go agains..” in against Obama during the debates. For a long time I was very skeptical of Obama’s chances (because I know the depths of depravity to which Republicans will sink). But if Romney continues to shoot himself in an alternate foot every other day, this election is shaping up to be Obama’s to lose.
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