Romney Caught…Well…’Being Romney’
Posted by Michelle Moquin on September 18th, 2012
Good morning!
This was all over the front page of the Huff Po last night so I am sure many of your saw it. But I couldn’t resist reposting it here. The article I chose on this topic was taken from Mother Jones.
SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters
When he doesn’t know a camera’s rolling, the GOP candidate shows his disdain for half of America.
—By David Corn
During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He 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. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:
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.
Romney went on: “[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.”
Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at this intimate fundraiser—where he candidly discussed his campaign strategy and foreign policy ideas in stark terms he does not use in public—and has confirmed its authenticity. To protect the confidential source who provided the video, we have blurred some of the image, and we will not identify the date or location of the event, which occurred after Romney had clinched the Republican presidential nomination. [UPDATE: After a restriction was lifted, Mother Jones reported that this fundraiser was held at the Boca Raton home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder on May 17.]
Here is Romney expressing his disdain for Americans who back the president:
At the dinner, Romney often stuck to familiar talking points. But there were moments when he went beyond the familiar campaign lines. Describing his family background, he quipped about his father, “Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot of winning this.” Contending that he is a self-made millionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, “I have inherited nothing.” He remarked, “There is a perception, ‘Oh, we were born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and so forth.’ Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America.”
Romney told the contributors that “women are open to supporting me,” but that “we are having a much harder time with Hispanic voters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting block has in the past, why, we’re in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.” When one attendee asked how this group could help Romney sell himself to others, he answered, “Frankly, what I need you to do is to raise millions of dollars.” He added, “The fact that I’m either tied or close to the president…that’s very interesting.”
Asked why he wouldn’t go full-throttle and assail Obama as corrupt, Romney explained the internal thinking of his campaign and revealed that he and his aides, in response to focus-group studies conducted by his consultants, were hesitant to hammer the president too hard out of fear of alienating independents who voted for Obama in 2008:
We speak with voters across the country about their perceptions. Those people I told you—the 5 to 6 or 7 percent that we have to bring onto our side—they all voted for Barack Obama four years ago. So, and by the way, when you say to them, “Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?” they overwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, “Are you disappointed that his policies haven’t worked?” they say yes. And because they voted for him, they don’t want to be told that they were wrong, that he’s a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he’s corrupt. Those people that we have to get, they want to believe they did the right thing, but he just wasn’t up to the task. They love the phrase that he’s “over his head.” But if we’re—but we, but you see, you and I, we spend our day with Republicans. We spend our days with people who agree with us. And these people are people who voted for him and don’t agree with us. And so the things that animate us are not the things that animate them. And the best success I have at speaking with those people is saying, you know, the president has been a disappointment. He told you he’d keep unemployment below 8 percent. Hasn’t been below eight percent since. Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can’t get a job. Fifty percent. Fifty percent of the kids in high school in our 50 largest cities won’t graduate from high school. What’re they gonna do? These are the kinds of things that I can say to that audience that they nod their head and say, “Yeah, I think you’re right.” What he’s going to do, by the way, is try and vilify me as someone who’s been successful, or who’s, you know, closed businesses or laid people off, and is an evil bad guy. And that may work.
(Note: Obama did not promise his policies would keep unemployment under 8 percent, and 50 percent of college graduates are not unemployed.)
To assure the donors that he and his campaign knew what they were doing, Romney boasted about the consultants he had retained, emphasizing that several had worked for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highly successful consultants, a couple of people in particular who have done races around the world. I didn’t realize it. These guys in the US—the Karl Rove equivalents—they do races all over the world: in Armenia, in Africa, in Israel. I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see which ads work, and which processes work best, and we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I’d tell them to you, but I’d have to shoot you.
When one donor said he was disappointed that Romney wasn’t attacking Obama with sufficient intellectual firepower, Romney groused that the campaign trail was no place for high-minded and detail-oriented arguments:
Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has to happen in the country, and people who are fascinated by policy will read the book. We have a website that lays out white papers on a whole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, I don’t think this will have a significant impact on my electability. I wish it did. I think our ads will have a much bigger impact. I think the debates will have a big impact…My dad used to say, “Being right early is not good in politics.” And in a setting like this, a highly intellectual subject—discussion on a whole series of important topics typically doesn’t win elections. And there are, there are, there are—for instance, this president won because of “hope and change.”
Romney, who spoke confidently throughout the event and seemed quite at ease with the well-heeled group, insisted that his election in and of itself would lead to economic growth and that the markets would react favorably if his chances seemed good in the fall:
They’ll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president’s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy. It depends of course which markets you’re talking about, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back and we’ll see—without actually doing anything—we’ll actually get a boost in the economy. If the president gets reelected, I don’t know what will happen. I can—I can never predict what the markets will do. Sometimes it does the exact opposite of what I would have expected. But my own view is that if we get a “Taxageddon,” as they call it, January 1st, with this president, and with a Congress that can’t work together, it’s—it really is frightening.
At the dinner, Romney also said that the campaign purposefully was using Ann Romney “sparingly…so that people don’t get tired of her.” And he noted that he had turned down an invitation fromSaturday Night Live because such an appearance “has the potential of looking slapstick and not presidential.”
Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don’t contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. Yet Romney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harsh words about Obama in public, lest he insult those independent voters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needs in this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with the voters; it was inside information, available only to the select few who had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.
COMING SOON: More from the secret Romney video.
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September 18th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
We depend on our givernment for the military that protects us from foreign invasion. And, no, it doesn’t make us less free.
This is an old Conservative canard that we are less free if we rely on our government. WE are the government.
It is there to serve us and promote our general welfare.What exactly do these people believe it is there for anyway?
Oh, yeah, Conservatives believe it is there to dictate to women regarding their reproductive rights.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Mitt and Santorum and his not smart party believe this characterization of the hardworking people of this country.
The Poor who are retired do get aid for housing, food and medical beyond what their contributions were.
Ok Romney are you insisting the folks who work a life time and earn no more than 20,000.00 per year as their max annual income are worthless, and should just be ground up in the soilent green when some one deems them no longer productive or useful to the economic machine you enjoy a membership in?
Victims of this economy are your servant class. Pay them more now and they won’t be needing help in the future.
September 18th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Many of the poor are victims. Victims of the corporate greed that out-sourced almost all of the manufacturing jobs overseas. Yes, there are many who are victims of the GOP philosophy that is so un-American, millions of the hardworking have been driven to finacial difficulty, and now require help from OUR Govt.
Romney and those like him, who; with his egomanical inferiority, is a dishonest crook who put many in dire economic straits in the first place. I feel he is a traitor and a theif and he will be exposed for exactly who he is prior to this upcoming election.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
I guess Netanyahu found out what it is like to kiss ten yards of white ass.
His friend Romney said he’s kick his ass down the line. So tell us again Net, how much more on Israel’s side your good friend Mitt is?
I guess you know what they call you in their private clubs and it isn’[t Prime Minister.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
A conservative is a person who will take the shirt off your back and keep it.
A liberal is a person who will take the shirt off their own back and give it to who needs it.
This is the fundamental difference between the two philosophies.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Yes, Romney this is a “golden opportunity” to let the American people understand that their country supports the wealthy elite, and if you fall, YOU WONT GET UP.
The bottom 50%, according to Romney, are government free loaders, and they include:
College Students – free loaders
People working two jobs at minimum wage – free loaders
elderly on medicare – free loaders
disabled Americans – free loaders
temporarily unemployed- free loaders
Actually, the real free loaders are the top one percent who take social security and medicare. These are people who make so much money they cannot possibly spend it all. But they are so “F”en greedy they take their social security and medicare. And, these same people have tax-dodging offshore accounts.
Who are the real free loaders here. Actually, Mitt you receive all the benefits of living in America but you hide you money overseas, to avoid taxation. Who is the real free loader Mitt.
YOU MITT ARE THE FREE LOADER, YOU MITT, AND YOUR CRONIES MULTIMILLIONAIRE CRONIES!
September 18th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Lately, I get the feeling that people like Romney, Rush and their ilk do nothing but sit around and pout about the scraps other people get that they want for themselves.
Romney sort of admires the Chinese workers’ camps, later in this speech. You get the sense that he just resents having to pay people salaries for their work.
He expects, nay, he feels ENTITLED, to free labor. He feels ENTITLED to ALL the money. He resents people who want to feed their children. He is so, so very badly damaged.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Most white people are okay with Romney saying that he didn’t care about 47% of the country because they knew that 40 of those previous 43 white presidents DIDN’t care about the OTWs.
That was just okay for white America. All Romney is doing is saying it out loud and adding the poor white trash to the batch.
What did you dumb as whites think? That they would care anymore about you than they do about us?
Alycedale
September 18th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
I really wonder who Mitt Romney thinks the “47%” are. He says that the 47% of people who pay no federal income tax are all voting for Obama, and he just has to convince 3-5% of the remaining 53% to cast their votes for him and he will win.
That makes no sense on its face. If anything, if it were tue, it would mean that Romney has to get at least 96% of EVERYONE ELSE in the country in order to win – a daunting task to say the least.
Of course the truth is that a large portion of the 47% – perhaps even a majority – are Republicans that are going to vote for Romney.
In fact, Romney NEEDS a larger portion of those people to vote for him – his message is that Romney has left specific people worse off than they were our years ago.
In reality, Romney shows himself as someone who, if elected, will look out for the concerns of the 1% and no one else.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
I guess Ole Mitt’s comments about you suck up latinos who support him is right on cue.
Your vote is a danger to the nation he says. He is right in more ways than he knows because if you stupid shits vote for that gringo you are indeed stupid.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
All people like me ask of the media is that they hold those in power, seeking office or with any authority accountable.
Then they could call themselves the Fourth Estate. As it is they are a piece of shit on the soles of the rich and powerful.
Candi
September 18th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Mitt Romney revealed how he feels about America at that fund raiser. He was with friends, where he could be candid and candid he was! He answered their questions, without a prepared speech and gave his thoughts on America, Isreal and his view of what his campaign has to do to get the votes he wants.
He made it clear that about half of the country will vote for President Obama, because they feel like victims and entitled to handouts. If he feels like that about half of the country, why does he want to be President of the United States?
Is he secretly disdainful of these “losers”, who are not his constituents? I thought a president was supposed to be proud of America. Mitt has made the classic ” Fruedian slip” and revealed how he really felt.
Since Mitt Romney likes to use his expertise as a businessman, let us make a quick guess how he would solve the dilemma of so many “victims” on food stamps, out of jobs, and those who are retired, living on SS.
They don’t have to pay taxes, so what to do with them? Well, what did he do with businesses that were not making money when he headed Bain Capital? (Fact Check on how Bain Capital made their billions).
It is not a pretty story. It seems that Mitt Romney does not care about the struggling half of the nation who will vote for Obama.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Alycedale, you are so right. When I think about how Obama had to apologize about saying they go to their guns…
And this LSOS gets to insult half America and double down on it. Most of white America is indeed racists and they feel so entitled to dis OTWs because they are white.
So they get to be Conservatives or whatever will give other whites an opportunity to not be bothered by the hatred and bigotry they spew.
If you doubt, any of what I said, check the polls, Romney has called people getting any type of government assistance useless and not worth his interest.
But the white boy, like the log cabin republicans can’t get past the skin color of Obama. So Romney is free to call them victims and the log cabins fags.
They are going to vote for him anyway.
Ollie
September 18th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Wolfes earlier book Promiscuities was a landmark read for me because of how it blends personal, sociological and intellectual. It literally changed the way i thought, not just about being a woman but about everything! few books have this power. I look forward to reading her latest, “Vagina”.
September 18th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Ditto Alycedale and Ollie. You can just hear the other 43 saying “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Like Romney, they don’t accept that most OTWs are the way they are financially because they are the “Last Hired and the First Fired.”
Sick country.
Aldofo
September 18th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Loved Soledad O’Brien when she told Bay Buchanan this…
The CNN host went on to say that according to New York Times columnist David Brooks, “The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees.”
O’Brien wondered, “So essentially, didn’t Mitt Romney, in these leaked tapes, really bash his own voters? Those are the people who are voting for Mitt Romney…
Aren’t the people who he is bashing to these wealthy donors — these are Republicans…white men with high school diplomas — these very people were the people who were going to vote for him, and now you have a major problem.”
==========================
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/soledad-obrien-grills-bay-buchanan-romney-ca
September 18th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Mitt Romney is, to me, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz all rolled into one, but without any of their lovability.
He has no brain, no heart and no courage. He is, in fact, more like the Wizard himself – a big voice, using big words, but behind the curtains the reality is exposed – a small man of no substance creating the illusion of bigness with smoke and mirrors.
September 18th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Many of the people who watch FoxNews ARE make too little money or on Social Security – they are the 47% and according to Mitt Romney should be voting for Barack Obama.
September 18th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
On FOX News, Hannity spent a huge chunk of his hour showing video of rioting Muslims. Very scary stuff! He blames scary Muslims on Obama, of course!
But Hannity didn’t go near Mitt’s train wreck! In the FOX News world the derailment of a presidential campaign by the shocking revelation that he despises half of America’s citizens, is just not news worthy!
Wow, if it was Obama’s campaign that lost it’s wheels, do you suppose that would be news????
Anybody????
September 18th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Selfish and cold. It is so sad he is even a candidate.
September 18th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
I watched that video 4 times and their is no mistake that Mitt has contempt for 47% of Americians, his big screw up is that at least half of them are Republicans and old people on social security and medicare. Obama 2012
September 18th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
The man was standing in a room filled with campaign contributors who love to hear disparaging “statistics” on all of those freeloading liberals they abhor.
The statement was crude and inaccurate and something I doubt he would have said in a public forum.
As an educated candidate, I am sure that MR and his advisors are aware that most likely the majority of this alleged “47%” of locked-in Obama supporters are more like me: a college-educated, gainfully employed, tax-paying, progressively-minded voter who has never needed nor taken advantage of government assistance, yet still believes in caring for the well-being of this nation’s citizens
September 18th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
The press is missing something very important. Romney took responsibility for what he said, how ofter has Obama done that?
Obama never accepts responsibility and never allows himself to be held accountable for anything. Which party is being honest about the country’s problems and which party wants to hide problems?
The Democrats have avoided committing to a budget for 4 years, that has never happened before. It is because they don’t want voters to know their spending plans and they don’t want to be held accountable. We need responsible leaders, that we can hold accountable.
September 19th, 2012 at 8:49 am
This is my first time to this blog. There seems to be a lot of vitriol on this blog. People really tell you what they think.
I guess it’s my turn to be boldly honest. I am a 19 year old white kid that lives in Greensboro NC. We were raised to avoid the blacks. Actually niggers. I don’t mean that meanly, but that is the word we use.
Sure some of out schools force us to mix with them but we don’t do it when school is out.
This race is about race. We don’t care what Romney does or even who he is. We want a white man back as the head of our country.
It is embarrassing that we the most powerful country in the world has a nigger as its head. Come on people this is America get out and vote that boy out.
Miller
September 19th, 2012 at 9:07 am
Miller, I was tempted to say this is a blog for grown ups. But you are what your are, a raised racist. Unfortunately, there are so many others just like you.
The polls show it. Like you said, it really doesn’t matter what Romney does, the white male vote is his. I mean there was Romney on tape suggesting to terrorist how to terrorize this country and it just got a pass.
If the black guy had said that he would have been castigated as a traitor and we whites would have had proof positive that he was “not one of us”.
My purpose for this note is for you to know that not all white males see it that way. I don’t vote straight party line. I am a republican, but it is obvious that Romney is not presidential material.
Bob
September 19th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Did anyone hear on this same tape Romney is bragging about slave labor. Mitt Romney admits buying Chinese sweatshop while at Bain. 20,000 young girls. 12 girls per room. 120 girls per bathroom. Huge fences with guard towers. Supposedly to keep out people “who would come in to work and hope to get paid.”
This guy is such a liar. But the media didn’t mention it. If that was a country doing that to white girls, it would have garnered a lot more attention.
Haillie
September 19th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Hallie I heard and read that section. What struck me is the part where Romney said 95% of life is set up for you if you’re born in America?
The thought that came to mind when I hear him admitting that on tape is why don’t the Dems make an ad and say here is Romney admitting. “you DIDN’T build that.”
September 19th, 2012 at 9:23 am
Everyone knows they work for pennies. you don’t have to go see the factory to learn that.
Yet he still bought the company and proudly employed th0se young girls for pennies.. how proud is he? SCUM!
September 19th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Yeah, Hallie, I read that too and I also felt that those comments were much more offensive than the “47%” thing.
We already knew he didn’t care about the underclass (and middle class apparently) but gloating about your sweatshops?
September 19th, 2012 at 9:26 am
What’s more astounding is that
1. A large portion of the Republican base agrees with Mitt Romney on his 47% comments. I’m guessing these are the same “keep your gub’ment hands off my Medicare” bunch.
2. This sweatshop story isn’t receiving more traction yet. There’s absolutely no moral concern here from Romney whatsoever.
This is Gilded Age stuff here. The factory owner admiring the child’s hands that can so nimbly reach between the gears.
September 19th, 2012 at 9:41 am
I once toured a factory such as mentioned here, when i asked about their sight after a few years (very tight eye work going on at the time) the manager said ‘oh there’s plenty of new young people with better eyes’ (oh OK, and who cares about the ones sitting right here), & oh yes and how about those young men sniffing glue in another room because that’s how panels are put on this type of furniture, sniffing it all day, a glue that made me ill in 10 minutes, ah there’s more of them too apparently, – it’s a mindset that’s hard to comprehend. And those same young people would go to the next factory and work under worst conditions for a penny or two more per hour. Human rights? not in a Chinese factory, though many of these kids are pleased to just be treated decent (not hit) and fed and housed. It’s a whole different world…
Is Romney creepy for supporting it, as much as any other factory owner there and none of them see themselves as running sweat shops really..it’s bizarre. (answer: yes it’s creepy and disgusting)
- ZL
September 19th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Miller
What 19 year old would call themselves a kid? Especially a guy.
Denmark is reeking…..
September 19th, 2012 at 10:43 am
GOOD AFTERNOON FROM DAILY EVENTS!
Yet again, Mitt Romney is on the defense, thanks to the lamestream media for comments that shouldn’t be worth talking about. Good for Romney for not backing down from them. He certainly could have said them better, but the point is well taken. Look for analysis from John Gizzi and David Harsanyi throughout the day.
Have a good Tuesday,
– Adam Tragone, Managing Editor