Mother Jones scored a big one yesterday and released snippets of a private fundraising event in Boca Raton, Florida earlier this year, where Mitt Romney is shown saying that almost half of Americans are, “people who pay no income tax” and are “dependent upon government.” The Romney camp went into over drive after the release of the tapes and held a late night press conference, where Romney tried to clarify his comments. This is going to be the campaign news of the day and likely most of the week. How bad are these Romney secret tapes?
After listening to the tapes and then listening to the late night presser by Romney, I am not sure which is worse, the tapes or Romney’s explanation of them. In both instances, Romney comes off quite condescending, elitist, and appears to be a rich know-it-all who has a plan for more responsible people and are better off than almost half the country. I mean he even said in the secret tapes that those 47% of the people can’t be convinced that, “they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” That line right there is the worst part of the tapes. It comes off very bad and Romney did nothing last night to address the callousness of that statement.
These tapes came out just 50 days before election day. They are bound to be in the headlines of the news all day today and for most of the week. I have stated many times that Romney is my candidate and that I will vote for him. This does nothing to change my opinion, but I do think it hurts him with other independents, the 5%-10% Romney claims he is specifically targeting in the secret tapes, who haven’t made up their mind yet. No one wants to elect a President they don’t believe will connect with everyday Americans. These tapes seem to continue the narrative that Romney is out of touch with the rest of us.
