Romney Gaffe Even Worse Than You Think: His Father Was a Member of the 47 Percent
By now, you know that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a group of fat-cat Republican fundraisers that he believes 47% of Americans think they are “victims,” who are“dependent on the government,” and “will never take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Romney’s comments were insulting, and they revealed a man losing touch with his party and even his own personal background, as we are about to see.
Republicans of all types have commented on the candidate's “inelegant” words. Their comments reveal a party concerned about the impact of Romney’s statement. Samplings of some of the notable comments include the following:
Paul Ryan: “He was obviously inarticulate.”
Bill Kristol: “Romney's comments are stupid and arrogant.”
David Brooks: “Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation”; “divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers”; “he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits”; “a country-club fantasy. It's what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other.”
Charles Krauthammer: [N]ot a very smart thing to say”
David Frum: “[T]he worst presidential candidate gaffe since Gerald Ford”
Scott Brown: “That’s not the way I view the world.”
Allen West: “I think he was a little clumsy in doing this"
Donald Trump: “[I]nartfully stated”
Linda McMahon: “I disagree with Governor Romney's insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims.”
Jonah Goldberg: “He's saying it badly.”
Romney’s comments insulted the millions of veterans and retirees who receive tax exempt benefits. He insulted the millions of workers who pay payroll and sales taxes. He insulted millions of farmers in rural America who receive tax subsidies. But Romney saved the biggest insult for his mother and father.
On Tuesday night Jon Stewart played an interview clip of Romney’s late mother. In that clip she describes her life of a freeloader and moocher living off government entitlement programs. Romney’s mother said this of George Romney, Mitt’s late father: “He was on relief, welfare relief, for the first years of his life, but this great country gave him opportunities.” Stewart quipped, “So according to Mitt Romney’s own logic Mitt Romney could not win the vote of his dad.”
Romney is not out of touch with the American people; he is out of touch with his own upbringing. How out of touch, you may wonder? Well, at that same fundraiser he said if his father had “been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot of winning this [election].” He said “I have inherited nothing.”
According to The New Yorker, “Romney was the son of a governor and an auto executive who gave him a wealth of connections, a private education, college tuition, a stock portfolio that he lived on while in graduate school, help buying a first house.”
That’s a lot of nothing.
Romney wants to be president of some of the people. Romney said “My job is not to worry about those people [in the 47%].” Where would he be if all of the people hadn’t pitched in to help “those people” in his family?
