Mitt Hides with the Moochers in UT

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In the last several weeks, Mitt’s campaign has suffered one after another self-inflicted wounds. Here’s how the horse race pundits summarize the damage.

All campaigns have their ups and downs, but the last three weeks for Mitt Romney have been about as brutal as we can remember for any presidential candidate, especially this close to the election. First, the biggest speech of Romney’s life got overshadowed by the Clint Eastwood stunt. Then came President Obama’s significant bounce in the polls after the two political conventions. After that, Romney found himself on the defensive for his reaction to embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya. Next, Politico reported about infighting and disorganization inside the Romney campaign. Finally, all of these events were capped off yesterday by the surreptitiously recorded video of Romney — provided to the liberal magazine Mother Jonesand later to NBC News — telling wealthy donors that “47%” of the country “who are dependent on government” and “who believe they are victims” will vote for Obama no matter what.

I find this latest video useful because–in my goal to make Mitt the poster child for everything that is wrong with our looting-for-profit economy–it has made even charitable pundits like Jonathan Chait see him as the sneering plutocrat he is.

The revelations in this video come to me as a genuine shock. I have never hated Romney. I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it, and to whatever extent he’d come to believe his own lines, he was oblivious or naïve about the damage he would inflict upon the poor, sick, and vulnerable.  It seems unavoidable now to conclude that Romney’s embrace of Paul Ryanism is born of actual contempt for the looters and moochers, a class war on behalf of his own class.

Which is why I find Byron York’s concerns so curious: Mitt has largely left the campaign trail.

He had one public appearance on his schedule Monday, Sept. 17, a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

He had one appearance scheduled Sunday, an airport rally in Pueblo, Colo., but it was canceled after a small plane crash there killed one person.

Romney had no public events Saturday. On Friday, he attended a single rally, at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. On Thursday, he attended a single rally, at a park in Fairfax, Va. On Wednesday, he was scheduled to hold a single campaign event at his headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., but instead appeared at a hastily organized press conference to denounce President Obama’s response to the embassy crises in Libya and Egypt. On Tuesday, Romney had one event, a speech to the National Guard Association convention in Reno, Nev. And on the day before that, another single rally, in Mansfield, Ohio.

Today, Mitt is visiting one of his three homes–and some of his Mormon donors–in UT.

Even as Mitt’s campaign is falling apart, he’s spending time in what will probably be his strongest state, purportedly to raise money.

Perhaps this reflects an effort within his campaign to revamp the campaign. Perhaps–as Charlie Pierce predicted–his campaign has gone almost dark to dream up the nastiest campaign imaginable.

Maybe Mitt has simply lost his will to fight, as he struggles to come to grips with the fact that people don’t believe he’s entitled to the Presidency just because he had the misfortune of being born a very rich white man.

But I wonder whether it isn’t something else, though.

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24 replies
  1. greengiant says:

    Damn right I’m a victim when mittens is paying 13 percent tax rate. Mittens forgot about the 47 percent who support him who are too dumb to do the math and who are going to vote for quarter billionaire who pays at a much lower tax rate than they do.

  2. JTMinIA says:

    I’m a bit annoyed at the standard reaction to these videos of Mittens. What Mitt said afterwards is clearly true: these were “process” statements; he was talking about what he needs to say and do to win the election, not what he actually believes. I mean, com’on. This is Mitt Romney that we’re talking about. Mitt will say anything to get elected and probably believes less than a quarter of what comes out of his mouth.

    The only parts of all this that I find truly revealing is how at ease he is when surrounded by people like him, which I’ve heard many times but never seen before, and how he clearly does not feel for or care about the vast majority of Americans. The specifics of what he said are a red herring to me. That he’s factually wrong when he says that “47% of Americans pay no income tax” is almost irrelevant, since he gets things wrong all the time.

    No, what bothers me the most is how the videos make it clear that elections are not about putting your ideas up against the other person’s, being very clear about your ideas, even explaining them in small but accurate words to make sure voters are making an informed choice; elections are about figuring out how to get more votes than the other person, end of story, full stop. If that requires lying, so be it. The ends – whatever they are – justify the means.

    In other words, these videos, to me, are no different than all the states trying to prevent people from voting. And that’s the real problem; not the fact that Mittens is rich and clueless.

  3. BSbafflesbrains says:

    I don’t know what Mitt thinks (if he does at all) but the R party is trying to gin up the base to prevent a McGovern like landslide that will almost guarantee enough downticket losses to lose the house and then the 1% will lose there excuse for Bipartisan solutions proffered by Obama to roll out our new “austerity”.

  4. OrionATL says:

    Jonathan chait is something of a fool in my book. his analytical capacity on domestic or international affairs is close to zero.

    he writes:

    “The revelations in this video come to me as a genuine shock. I have never hated Romney. I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it, and to whatever extent he’d come to believe his own lines, he was oblivious or naïve about the damage he would inflict upon the poor, sick, and vulnerable. It seems unavoidable now to conclude that Romney’s embrace of Paul Ryanism is born of actual contempt for the looters and moochers, a class war on behalf of his own class.”

    “i have never hated romney” – is that a criterion for evaluation of a presidential candidate? is being harshly and accurately critical of romney’s ideas a clear indication of hatred for the man? do those who oppose his becoming president do so because of hatred?

    romney is responsible for what he says – that is all we have to go on unless we know him well.

    romney is responsible for the public image he projects of himself.

    romney may be judged by his background.

    “… I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it,…”

    does this not mean that his “phony” (so we can ignore them as an indicator of what he believes?)ideas are in reality the ideas that will drive his presidency (“even if he was now committed to carry through with it”)?

    chait, it seems, could not bring himself to criticize romney?

    why not?

    reagan, recall was described as an “amiable dune”.

    in the hindsight history offers, he would better be described as “an amiable, foolish, and destructive dunce”. recall further that reagan was a liberal until he met up with general electric.

  5. par4 says:

    Also 2, I find it hilarious that nobody brings up the fact that all of the military/industrial corporations that own this country are moochers and leeches. Hell, monopoly protection has created most,if not all,of the oligarchs starting with Astor’s American Fur Company.

  6. Saltinwound says:

    This is bad news for Jeb Bush. Republicans will not want another guy who is so easy to paint as rich and entitled. In terms of image, they will want a roll up your sleeves Republican like Christie.

  7. joanneleon says:

    Either way the 1% wins. I expect to see all kinds of things released in the next six weeks. Does any of it make much difference?

  8. OrionATL says:

    “But I wonder whether it isn’t something else, though.”

    c’mon, ew. don’t leave us hanging. when can we expect chapter 2?

    money problem?

    mental problems?

    family problems?

    woman problems?

    business-associated problems?

    sore hands?

    serious chronic illness?

    but then, maybe willard is pioneering a new way of running for prez, as demonstrated in the republican primaries.

    all one needs to prevail over an opponent in american national and state elections is a massive advertising campaign (and a massive treasury). gingrich and his sugar daddy and santorum and his sugar daddy demonstrated that conclusively.

    it would be the final stage in retail politics for candidates to largely skip the inconsequential (and occasionally damaging) personal appearances and rely entirely on massive advertising campaigns in electronic media and print.

  9. BSbafflesbrains says:

    @x174: I have suspected that since the R clown car primary started. Obama will deliver the austerity medicine the 99% need and the 1% will get richer.

  10. bigchin says:

    I think the GOP is trying to lose this election… and who could blame them. Things are getting worse on a global scale and they won’t get better no matter who wins. Why would anyone (and I asked the same question about Obama) want to inherit such a mess? And why, once elected, did Obama do just about everything possible to avoid fixing it?

    As if Obama doesn’t thrive on donations from the 1% too…

    Birds of a feather…

    here’s a revealing take on this farce:

    “Who Cares”( http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/who-cares/ )

    “So Mitt goes to a fundraiser and tells his donors just what they want to hear. 47% of Americans are lazy, parasites.

    In 2008, Obama went to a fundraiser and told his donors just what they wanted to hear. A lot of voters are stupid, gun totin’, knuckle draggers.

    You know what this tells me?

    Big money donors don’t know squat about what it’s like to live in America without a trust fund and a portfolio of hedge fund investments. AND they tend to judge books by their covers and their mamas didn’t raise them right.

    In other words, these people, and their candidates, have nothing to do with me.

    You can elect whoever you want in 2012. There will be some people who will tell you that picking a specific presidential candidate makes a difference. Based on how they talk to their donors, I don’t see it that way. I don’t like either of these people and how they talk to their donors doesn’t phase me in the least. Last year, I was paying more than enough in taxes to keep a family of four above the poverty line. This year, I make below the poverty line in income. So, in a year, I’ve gone from 25 years of responsibility as a drug designer of cancer therapies to a deadbeat, indistinguishable from the trailer trash, high school dropout without teeth who thinks Jerry Springer has high-falutin’ guests.

    I think we have the donors to thank for that.

    I’ve got more important things to worry about than how clueless a bunch of rich people are. Their day is coming when they have taken the last bit of value off the top of the mountain and their whole reason for being is suddenly meaningless. Maybe after that, they’ll realize that they’ve got a problem.

    But that is not my concern right now. And, frankly, I don’t really give a damn.”

  11. OrionATL says:

    @bigchin:

    your loss of job, status, and income does not make you are any less of a person.

    one of the errors we americans make in life is to assume our self-worth is measured by our employment and income status; it most emphatically is not.

    i wish you and your family a recovering economy that will once again value your skill and experience.

  12. P J Evans says:

    @jo6pac:
    They sort of apologized about it last night – apparently it was because it was a new poster who put up a lot of videos close together, and that triggered admin attention – they thought it was a spam attack. (If the poster had put some more information with them, there would have been less trouble.)

  13. ryanwc says:

    >something else …

    Does this relate to your later post about Mitt’s comment about taking advantage of a foreign policy crisis? Sure he jumped on the Libya thing, but I’m worried that they may have something else in the pipes. And slapping a drum about Iran on Meet the Press is not what I’m talking about.

  14. Bob Schacht says:

    The thought has occurred to me that the reason Romney’s campaign manager has not been fired is that someone(s) very powerful wants him to stay, because he believes what they believe.

    This is Chapter One in the Republican’s forthcoming book, _How to Buy an Election_. The fat cats are learning this year that you can’t just throw money around to win. You have to have campaign themes that voters can relate to, and your candidate(s) need to stay on message. And a bunch of other things that will come to the fore in 2016. I am still predicting that the Republican party will split after the election, with a good number showing up in Libertarian garb, and some Congresspersons switching parties (from Republican to Libertarian) for good measure. Maybe Ron Paul, too, if he can figure out how to do it without damaging his son’s future.

    Bob in AZ

  15. lefty665 says:

    @OrionATL:

    Dear 3rdRateRouter: What you are responding to is not bigchin’s personal circumstances. It is text from the link bigchin provided. Even though you missed it in the post, perhaps if you’d looked at the link you’d have figured that out. We know you’re Caps Challenged and Uppercase Impaired, but is one click of the mouse really too much to ask?

    Gag me with a spoon. There was no hint that the writer felt “less of a person” until you introduced it. Bet that cheers her right up.

    You may, and apparently do, speak for yourself, but I resent that you include me in “one of the errors we americans make in life is to assume our self-worth is measured by our employment and income status”. I am an “american” (Ich bin ein jelly doughnut for JFK fans); North, but not Canadian or Mexican, and I make plenty of my own mistakes. Confusing “self” with “net” when referring to “worth” is not among them. Nor is it likely an error most readers of this blog, or many “americans”, north, south, or central make.

    Even your concluding well meaning platitude is demeaning: “a recovering economy that will once again value your skill and experience.” Translation – No hope for you, you don’t produce anything useful. Your trifling ass is worthless until the economy gets fat enough to tolerate waste again.

    Perhaps you might give bigchin’s post another glance. There’s some good stuff in it.

    First: Referring to the global mess: “…why, once elected, did Obama do just about everything possible to avoid fixing it?”

    Second: What looks like a very good reason: “As if Obama doesn’t thrive on donations from the 1% too… Birds of a feather…”

    Third: “…here’s a revealing take on this farce: “Who Cares”( http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/who-cares/ )”

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