No, Romney didn’t just lose the election
posted at 8:41 am on September 18, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
I got home late last night and missed most of the hysteria over Mitt Romney’s remarks at a fundraiser in May, but I’m glad to see I didn’t miss all of it. Here’s Josh Barro at Bloomberg, telling us we can take a 50-day nap, because the election is all over now that Romney has described 47% of voters as victims:
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
On the tape, Romney explains that his electoral strategy involves writing off nearly half the country as unmoveable Obama voters. As Romney explains, 47 percent of Americans “believe that they are victims.” He laments: “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
So what’s the upshot? “My job is not to worry about those people,” he says. He also notes, describing President Obama’s base, “These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.”
This is an utter disaster for Romney.
I’m not going to argue that it’s good for Romney. This is what comes from candidates attempting to become political analysts on the campaign trail. Newt Gingrich made this same mistake during the primaries, and it caused him headaches as well. Candidates need to stick to their message, and shrug off questions about strategy; that’s for staffers to leak to the media. When candidates forget that, they end up producing sound bites that sound like this, or like Howard Dean’s reality-defying 2004 “Yeargh!” moment in Iowa.
But if quips won elections, I have dozens more damaging in the Obamateurism series than this. This one is hardly fatal, at least in part because Romney is actually on solid ground in terms of the math, as the Daily Beast pointed out last night:
Jim Messina, Obama campaign manager, called the statement “shocking” and “disdainful.” Gail Gitcho, Romney communication director, said that it showed that the former governor really is “concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government.” But ham-handed, principled, offensive, or otherwise, Romney’s words were clearly one thing: true. Here are the facts.
According to the Tax Policy Center, a partnership of the liberal Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, 46.4 percent of American filers pay “zero or negative” income tax. …
Paying no income tax is one thing. Being “dependent on government” is another. But under a broad definition of government dependence—that is, receiving federal entitlements—more than 47 percent of us are in Romney’s category. According to the Census Bureau, 49 percent of Americans live in a household that receives a government entitlement for “health care” through Medicaid or Medicare, “food” through stamps, disability, Social Security, or a “housing” assistance program. Most of these benefits are not paid for by their recipients, but by federal deficits. The gap between promises and anticipated funds for Social Security is $8.6 trillion for the next 75 years, according to the government’s own estimates (PDF). For Medicare, it’s $27 trillion.
Of course, sometimes perception outruns facts, and the perception of Romney as out of touch with the working class has already been advanced by Team Obama. The problem with the whole “the election is over” analysis is that it defies history — and recent history at that. Almost exactly four years earlier, in another fundraiser secretly taped by an attendee, a major-party nominee made the same mistake as Romney and offered some political analysis of why large numbers of voters were probably unreachable in an election. The nominee — some also-ran named Barack Obama — told his urbane San Francisco crowd of supporters that people in the hinterlands were xenophobic and clung bitterly to their religion and guns in hard times, and would be difficult to win over. In fact, Obama made oblique references to that argument prior to that tape, occasionally talking about the handicap of having a “funny name” would be with some voters.
That is almost exactly the same kind of argument Romney made, only in the context of government assistance. How’d that work out for Obama? Not too bad, as I recall.
This instant-toast analysis is the product of a media with too much pressure to be profound and not enough perspective to resist it. We like to think that one utterance can decide elections, but it’s really not the case. For instance, pundits will talk about how Jimmy Carter’s decision to cite his teenage daughter as an expert in a response to a debate question on the biggest issue facing the world lost him the election, but it was the Iran hostage crisis and massive stagflation that made Carter a one-term President. His predecessor was supposedly set to win until he asserted in a debate that Poland wasn’t under Soviet domination, but Gerald Ford lost that election when he pardoned Richard Nixon two years earlier; after Watergate and the pardon, Republicans weren’t going to keep the White House. Similarly, we like to think that John McCain lost the election in 2008 when he announced that he would suspend his campaign to return to Washington in the wake of the economic collapse, but after eight years of George Bush, war fatigue, and the economic collapse itself, the likelihood of any Republican winning that election looks close to nil in retrospect. And perhaps the election of the least-experienced executive in modern American presidential history that year bears that analysis out, too.
In the end, the American people will decide this election not on quips but on records and policy, as they always have.
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Yes. Now please tell us why you believe she was telling the truth when she said those words. And why you are desperately bending over backwards to give her and O’bama the benefit of the doubt in this matter, when we know you would have never done had this tragedy happened on Bush and Rice’s Watch.
But before doing so, please remember that many folks here on the Right Side of the blogosphere confirmed last fall that when she said those words, youtube’s own records (the view count for the video) showed that hardly anyone had viewed that “evil video” at the time she Lied about it on TV. You are familiar with the mechanics of youtube view counts, aren’t you?
F-
Del Dolemonte on May 7, 2013 at 5:33 PM
verbaluce on May 7, 2013 at 5:29 PM
You’re a sad figure for typing that comment. If you don’t know it, you can’t be helped.
I told you immediately after it happened what was behind it. Amb. Stevens should have been in the bunker of the main embassy, in Tripoli, that day. It’s the MO of all major embassies, on such days. All else went sour from there and is a huuuuuge cover up, to keep Obama in power.
It’s very sad that you, of all the trolls, are as insane as all the others on this topic.
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:33 PM
Paul Mirengoff at Power Line:
Del Dolemonte on May 7, 2013 at 5:36 PM
Media, most of you, suffocate from consuming Obama’s shit. It ain’t Beluga caviar and you all deserve to be depleted of oxygen over such dereliction of duty.
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:37 PM
Why, you are already here. Your histrionics continues to amuse. You aren’t interested in a genuine investigation. You’re a pathetic little hack with your head so far up Obama’s azz it’s comical. Oh, and who is going to lead a genuine investigations? The democrats? The State Dept? The media? ROFLMAO!!!!! Your pathetic attempts to chastise commenters here who want the truth are a laugh riot.
Now phuck off and go back to blowing your Obama doll.
HumpBot Salvation on May 7, 2013 at 5:37 PM
Petraeus should burn in Hell on Earth, and then some.
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:37 PM
verbie you lost your 2% of credibility on this thread. You are now the same as all the others, sadly.
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:38 PM
Obama, McCain and Rubio were fully pushing the Libya invasion.
Obama owns Benghazi.
Hillary owns Benghazi.
Benghazi proved, without a shred of doubt, that Hillary is as dumb at 3:00a.m., when the phone rings, as is Obama.
Obama flew to Vegas to campaing, the next day, after he’d gone to sleep after being told the embassy was on fire.
Some caring characters they are.
Most derelict are the parents of Amb. Stevens. Were they not so leftist they’d have pushed for answers before the election. How derelict are they?
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:41 PM
verbie, you’re needed on the Sheila Jackson Lee thread.
Schadenfreude on May 7, 2013 at 5:44 PM
Yeah sorry no. Based on the various revisions to the “talking points” out there, it’s pretty clear they were edited in a way that made it possible to push the patently false youtube video narrative, i.e. removed all references to AQ, Ansar al-Sharia, weapons and militants in Libya. To say their later statements reflect what they got from the CIA … lol.
rightmind on May 7, 2013 at 5:45 PM
You’re lying, verbaluce.
blink on May 7, 2013 at 5:57 PM
And as I offered back then, a valid point to question why Stevens wasn’t more secure…or provided with more security.
(And thanks…but I’ll leave you to whatever i going on re: Shelia Jackson.)
verbaluce on May 7, 2013 at 6:01 PM
Yea…everyone’s lying.
/sarc
verbaluce on May 7, 2013 at 6:02 PM
You clearly lied. You falsely claimed that they didn’t knowingly provide false information.
Even the admin itself is now admitting that it knowingly provided false information (while justifying it by saying that they were protecting classified info).
You just decided to blatantly lie.
blink on May 7, 2013 at 6:07 PM
Benghazi Embassy:
The official told story, as of now seems to be falling apart at a fast and ferocious paced. Just thinking about some things that may not mean anything but here goes!
Looking back to the internet posting of 11-13 September 2012, there are literally 10,000′s posting stating in one manner or another that Sam Bacile and his film caused the riots that caused the deaths. Then almost nothing until he is arrested and gets 1 year in federal prison for parole violation. Then nothing after that he seems to completely disappear of the grid. There seems to be some indication that he may be out and under Federal protection but nothing provable.
The internet acts fast BUT 10,000′s postings all pointing to a film, with in 24 hrs, look a lot more like a mass mailing then news and opinion reporting. There is very limited evidence of any sustainability of outrage.
Next thing I fine most interesting is: If all this was outrage caused by the film, then why is the film still available on Youtube and no one in the world cares anymore?
Just all seems a bit strained of ones imagination.
jpcpt03 on May 7, 2013 at 6:23 PM
Nope. Go back and read the thread.
Um, it would bother me if ANY Commander-in-Chief did it. I was and still am bothered about what was said in the lead up to the Iraq War.
Um, it means that he was NOT acting as a Commander-in-Chief should when the first Ambassador in 33 years has gone missing – he wasn’t told until the following morning that Stevens had died even though it was known before then.
Why would any President not be concerned enough to about a missing Ambassador and an attack on the Benghazi consulate? Why would he NOT being in touch with the Secretary of Defence?
And, we deserve the TRUTH about it.
A sitting American President lied to the American public, his fellow citizens, for political reasons about a terrorist attack and, therefore, was actually covering up the real reason behind the attack: Islamists militants and Al Qaeda in a country that he decided to destabilise by acting militarily without the consent of Congress and during an election when his narrative that ‘GM is alive, OBL is dead, and AQ is on the run.’
See Bob Scheiffer and Salon mag, to name two, about that.
Resist We Much on May 7, 2013 at 6:37 PM
What genuine investigation?
The Mullins-Pickering investigation that failed to interview Hillary Clinton?
The one that would not allow – think how Orwellian that is – Congress access to the survivors and went so far as to change the names of them in their own medical records?
The one that didn’t interview the people on the ground?
The one where the Obama administration said ‘No comment pending the report of the ARB’ and then started squawking that ‘Benghazi happened a long time ago. We need to move on…’?
Resist We Much on May 7, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Nice attempt at lowering expectations.
J/K Verbie, that was actually a pathetic attempt.
JusDreamin on May 7, 2013 at 7:15 PM
ted c on May 7, 2013 at 7:17 PM
I have known a number of federal agents. Up to a point, most feds just do as they are told and they have good days and bad and weak sisters (excuse the sexism) in different jobs.
As indicated above, the entire video and spontaneous protest meme was absurd from the start. So the obvious question is who was selling it or ordering people to include it in the narrative?
It certainly lived long enough. It was publicly cited by the two Dem POTUS candidates in statements. Money was spent on TV ads in Pakistan.
Repeat, slowly…“money was spent on TV ads in Pakistan”.
LOL
And these people control nuclear weapons and a billion rounds of ammo in DHS!
IlikedAUH2O on May 7, 2013 at 7:20 PM
So I see not Bret hair, or bill o idiot is talking about the whistleblowers.mwell there you have it. No big deal mova along
Conservative4ev on May 7, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Pretty sure the sign on Obama’s desk reads, “The Buck Stops …. uhhhh, in the Bush Administration.”
There Goes the Neighborhood on May 8, 2013 at 12:23 AM
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