Potential Game-Changer: Romney’s Controversial Closed-Door Comments Could Hurt Him Badly

By Ashish Pabari On September 17, 2012 · 17 Comments

I’ll be posting more thoughts on this Romney 47% fiasco on the No We Can’t Politics Twitter page. Be sure to follow us.

Game-changing gaffes happen in every Presidential election. In 2008, it was John McCain proclaiming that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” as Lehman Brothers collapsed that turned the tide to Obama once and for all. Sometimes people overreact to certain gaffes in the moment. But this one — Mitt Romney literally attacking 47% of Americans to a group of wealthy donors and having it all caught on video — seems like it could be a legitimate game-changer for several reasons.

* The video is basically an Obama campaign dream come true because it reinforces the exact image of Romney that Obama wants voters to see. In the video, Romney comes off exactly as the out-of-touch, “I fire people” multimillionaire, in a room full of his multimillionaire supporters, attacking poor and middle class people. The Obama camp couldn’t have written this better. And it’s on video.

* How does Romney connect with middle class voters, with blue collar workers, with Latinos, with minorities, when he is now on video calling them all moochers? How is he now going to go to blue collar workers in Ohio and walk this back? Romney has spent a lot of time and money trying to appeal to middle class people, and he may have undone all of that here. The Romney we see on video does not sound at all like a guy who sympathizes with or understands the struggles of average, middle class Americans. It is one of those moments where a candidate thinks nobody is watching and he can be himself. And it reveals a lot — things that will hurt Romney from now until election day.

* Romney basically attacks seniors in this video, as they would fall into the 47% of Americans that he labels as government moochers who don’t pay taxes and just want handouts. Not going to play well in Florida.

* Romney even attacks some of his own supporters here — a big percentage of people who receive government benefits are poor, non-college graduate whites, particularly in the South. That demographic overwhelmingly votes Republican.

* In the video, Romney makes some bizarre jokes about how he’d be doing better if he was born in Mexico. Not sure how that will play to a Hispanic community that is already supporting Obama overwhelmingly.

* Romney just can’t seem to get through a few days without tripping himself up. Literally an hour after I posted an article asking people to not proclaim the election over yet following his Libya blunder last week, this stuff surfaces. It’s the latest setback for a campaign that has had setback after setback, mistake after mistake, gaffe after gaffe, for the last several weeks. All of it combines to present an image of a campaign in free fall, a campaign floundering. That is not an image that will entice a lot of undecided voters and fill them with confidence. And what makes it worse is these are all unforced errors. Romney is sinking his own campaign by constantly making politically tone deaf statements.

* Romney probably needs to apologize for the statement, but that raises another problem. The Rush Limabaughs of the world are going to love Romney’s statement, no matter how politically damaging it may be. So if Romney does try to take it back, he will be skewered for it on the far-right.

* It is very similar to the closed-door comments Barack Obama made during the 2008 primary battle where he said small-town Americans cling to religion and guns. That comment was used relentlessly by Hillary Clinton and to great effect — she ended up coming back in the primary largely around a blue-collar message that portrayed Obama as an elitist who is out of touch with average Americans.

* Part of Romney’s message has been that Obama has divided the country, and he’ll bring it back together. All credibility on that claim is now shot. You can’t really claim that you’ll bring people together when you are literally on video attacking and dismissing 47% of the country.

* Today was supposed to be the day Romney rebooted his campaign and got back on message. Instead, he is going to have to spend this week now defending, walking back, and explaining the comments he made. Every day that goes by where Romney has to spend his time trying to clean up the messes he makes is a lost opportunity.

* Message discipline. The Romney campaign simply does not have it. We all were amazed in 2008 that Obama could be that stupid to make the comments he made at an event, knowing we live in an age of cell phones and instant video. So it is even more shocking that four years later, Romney seems to have done it, only he didn’t make the mistake in the primary like Obama did, he has made it 50 days before the election. Someone running for President should have the common sense to not attack and dismiss 47% of the electorate when he is currently losing.

If Romney does go on to lose the election, this will be one of the things people will remember as the cause.

17 Responses to Potential Game-Changer: Romney’s Controversial Closed-Door Comments Could Hurt Him Badly

Grant says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:04 PM

Mitt Romney is really proving himself to be a master at blowing what should be an easy election for him to win. What the hell is he doing? I am outraged that this is the guy my party nominated. How the hell do you say this stuff in public?

Reply
Nods says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:05 PM

And that should just about do it. Thanks Mitt for getting Obama re-elected.

Reply
Ken says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:12 PM

Shake hands, kiss babies, and keep your mouth shut. How hard can it be.

Reply
- Nods says:
  
  September 17, 2012 at 10:26 PM
  
  Apparently that is too difficult for Mitt “Gaffe Machine” Romney.
  
  Reply
Cbear says:

September 17, 2012 at 8:21 PM

I understood what Romney said and I’m not offended one bit. Instead shouldn’t we be as tax paying citizens be offended that so many of our fellow Americans not only rely but in some cases mooch off the system?

The fact that some feel entitled to “free” stuff which the rest of us pay for, makes me angry. What Romney said is no game changer for the President, instead I hope the voting public wakes up.

Reply
- Nods says:
  
  September 17, 2012 at 9:06 PM
  
  Cbear, have you ever used, or plan to use, Medicare, Social Security, public roads, public schools, the police, the fire department, etc? If so, according to Mitt Romney, you are a government moocher.
  
  Do you think that senior citizens who work their whole lives and now don’t pay taxes because they are retired are moochers with their hands out? Because seniors are part of the 47% Romney talked about in the video.
  
  You do understand that 74% of the people who don’t pay federal income tax are senior citizens and people who have an annual income of under $20,000 a year, right?
  
  Reply
  - Nods says:
    
    September 17, 2012 at 9:14 PM
    
    And as part of the 47% who support Obama, I take offense to Romney’s comments. I own a business, have worked my entire life, pay my taxes, etc. To be called a “moocher” and attacked by Romney when I have worked hard and paid my taxes all my life is insulting.
    
    Reply
    - Grant says:
      
      September 17, 2012 at 10:27 PM
      
      It is perfectly fair to argue that Democrats cradle poor people more than they should and that those people need to be pushed a bit more into work and independence.
      
      That being said, Romney said what he said in such a crude way that the substance of his message will be lost and everyone will just talk about how it comes off and how cold he sounds in the video.
      
      Reply
xjuggernaughtx says:

September 17, 2012 at 9:13 PM

It doesn’t matter if you agree with Romney on this or not. The delivery of it is tone deaf. It once again shows that this guy doesn’t have a political compass. You can’t tell America, “Hey I have contempt for half of you. The poor half. The struggling half.” You cannot say that and expect to be elected. The poor half won’t support you and parts of the other half won’t support you either. YOU CANNOT PISS OFF HALF OF THE VOTERS!

When it comes to basically calling these people entitled freeloaders, I like to remind people that we tried that conservative approach before. It was called the Industrial Revolution. As a society, we decided that we didn’t like people starving to death in old age and being thrown aside while being maimed on the job. So our ancestors changed things up to take care of the poor, the old, the unlucky, etc. The fundamentals haven’t changed. You can cut the services to these freeloaders if you want, but I will guarantee within 30 years, society will change it back. We just don’t like seeing starving children and elderly people with no place to live.

I grew up poor in Kentucky. Almost every person that I ever met that was on government assistance was a hard working, two jobs kind of a person. I think that lazy, entitled person who laughs about gaming the system and collects free government stuff is largely a myth. In order to get that stuff, you have to be uncomfortably disadvantaged. It’s like being homeless. You have to be crazy to be homeless. No sane, well adjusted person just decided to live on the streets, freezing all night and starving most of the time. But people try and pretend like these guys are just lazy people who should get a job. Get to know some schizophrenic homeless dudes and let me know if you want them working with you.

Society is defined by how we treat our weakest members. Romney is essentially saying that he disdains anyone who needs a hand and that is an attitude that brought down the entire feudal system in Europe. Can we take a look at the welfare systems and make adjustments to serve better and close off potential abuse loopholes? Sure. However, we can’t afford as a moral, responsible society to take the life preserves from these people. Most of them have been paddling for their whole life and they are tired. They are very close to drowning and the only people who don’t care about people drowning are the people inside the ship who are safe and dry and don’t have to watch them finally go under the waves.

Reply
- Nods says:
  
  September 17, 2012 at 10:25 PM
  
  Well said.
  
  Reply
- llc says:
  
  September 18, 2012 at 6:49 AM
  
  Very well said!
  
  Reply
Anonymous says:

September 17, 2012 at 10:38 PM

Wow, Romney is *done* as a viable candidate, at least for this election. He’s got a big brass set of balls to say something like that…

Reply
- Gayle says:
  
  September 18, 2012 at 11:22 AM
  
  I hope, for everyone’s sake, that Romney doesn’t try to run again if he loses this time. His party will never nominate him again. It was foolish to go with him this time.
  
  Reply
Paul says:

September 17, 2012 at 11:14 PM

The twitter page for this blog raised a good question — has any Presidential candidate ever made this bad a statement before? I mean this is literally a Presidential candidate personally attacking 47% of the country. That is 47%. Mitt does realize you need over 50% to win right?

What happened to asking people for their vote? Romney doesn’t seem to understand the basic premise for how an election works. You want people to support you, Mittens, this isn’t a race to who can offend the most people by election day.

Reply
Mr. Ballistik says:

September 18, 2012 at 1:09 AM

Hopefully Obama’s victory will result in the Tea Party moving for third party status. If people like Romney, Guiliani, Jeb Bush, McCain and Bloomberg didn’t have to identify with the thoughts of Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, and the turd I took yesterday, I would probably vote Republican.

Reply
cfo says:

September 18, 2012 at 6:41 AM

Sounds like a “Willy Horton” moment 22 years later.In politics as in much elsewhere in life “you can think what you want or like, but you cannot necessarily say or do as you want and like”.

Reply
xjuggernaughtx says:

September 18, 2012 at 12:38 PM

Here is an interesting article on why the stance from Romney is ridiculous and willfully manipulative.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

It follows a trend of parties taking a stance they wish were true rather than a stance that is true. The truth is often filled with messy details and other things that dilute your focus. Parties would much rather have a clear, easy to understand message with no ambiguity.

However we live in the information age, and politicians are having a hard time keeping up. You can’t make BS statements like this today and not think it will be fact-checked within 10 minutes. The days where people just gave politicians the benefit of the doubt and blind trust are over.

Reply