Big difference in caught-on-tape remarks by Romney and Obama
Barb ShellyYou’d think by now that candidates for the highest office in the land would just assume that their remarks at private fundraisers are being videotaped.
Barack Obama caused a kerfuffle during his 2008 primary campaign when he told supporters in Pennsylvania that some people “…get bitter, and they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or, you know, anti-trade sentiment [as] a way to explain their frustrations.”
A lot of people found that patronizing and belittling, as though the senator from the Chicago area thought he was better than these folks who cling to God and guns.
Obama obviously survived that caught-on-tape moment. I don’t think Mitt Romney will overcome his.
Here’s the difference: Obama, in the full context of his remarks (see below), was being empathetic. Romney was simply being dismissive when he said that “there are 47 percent who are with (Obama), 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.…And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”
It says as much about the state of the Republican Party as it does about Romney that someone can rise to the top of a national ticket and speak so contemptuously about nearly 50 percent of Americans. And so wrongly.
There undoubtedly are some freeloaders in the 47 percent. But it also includes college students, retirees, active duty military and many hardworking Americans who pay payroll taxes and Social Security taxes, but who don’t earn enough to pay income taxes. A lot of them desperately want to pay income taxes, but they’re out of work or stuck in low-paying jobs. Why would a candidate speak so disrespectfully of those Americans?
Some conservatives, like Michael Walsh at the National Review, are urging Romney to stand up and own his remarks, which help to explain why he uttered them. He was echoing the thinking of an influential segment of his party.
It is cold, uncaring thinking which leaves no room for lifting people up or reducing the savage inequities in today’s America.
Here, for old-time’s sake, are Obama’s caught-on-tape remarks that caused a stir four years ago. Like Romney, he was talking to supporters, explaining strategy:
“Here’s what it is: In a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, they feel so betrayed by government, that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, there’s a part of them that just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by—it is true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism. (Audience laughs.)
“But—so the questions you’re most likely to get are going to be: ‘Well, you know, what’s this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ And what they want to hear is—you know, so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing: to close tax loopholes and roll back, you know, the top—the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s going to give tax breaks to middle-class folks, and we’re going to provide health care for every American. You know, we’ll have a series of talking points.
“But the truth is that our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s no evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio—like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. And each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate. And they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or, you know, anti-trade sentiment (as) a way to explain their frustrations.”
Kevin Sheely
8 months, 1 week agoHe wasn’t being contemptuous of anyone. Both sides are fighting over the same handful of undecided voters. Obama has a solid floor of support in large part thanks to people who don’t produce or contribute anything.
Oh those poor poor 47% who pay no income taxes. They’ve been belittled (sniff). Welcome to the club. I’m belittled every day of my life. I’m a conservative Christian employed white male. Which, by definition these days means I’m an ignorant, evil, uneducated, woman-hating, greedy, selfish, science-denying knuckledragging buffoon. Oh, and of course racist.
I could live in government housing, eat government food, send my kids to government schools, get government healthcare so tell me, why in heck do I bother to show up for work every day? What is the point. There’s an enormous disincentive to work and produce and contribute and Obama and the Democrats do everything they can to encourage this trend.
Barb and the rest of the liberal media have done absolutely everything they possibly can to boost Obama and attack Romney. This whole narrative was written months ago. The phony polls are designed to support their pre-ordained conclusion that Saint Barack the Merciful will cruise to an easy victory. It’s no wonder newspaper ad revenue just hit a 60-year low, the product they produce couldn’t possibly be made free enough to justify getting a subscription.
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 1 week agoGosh I am glad I only contribute a miniscule amount of these bloggers’ salaries….
yt, ms. shelly and the ever downtrodden lewis… What a trio of libs…..
I wonder if they coordinate????
Kevin Sheely
8 months, 1 week agoAmen brother. They give away their product for free yet it still seems like a ripoff
Steven Fetter
66223
8 months, 1 week agoThe difference is that you are blinded by your bias towards the Democratic Party and against the GOP. Therefore, there is a big difference, in your not so humble opinion.
Perhaps both men exactly what they said. Let the voters decide which they agree with.
Mark Hastert
8 months, 1 week agoThe part of Me Romney’s remarks that he will not be forgiven for is ” I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
He implies that those people as irresponsible yet I’m sure he knows that many of the “irresponsible people” are retirees, disabled, and the working poor. Many of the poor get these tax breaks as a result of Republican programs like the child tax credits and earned income credit.
If he wants to denigrate the irresponsible people he should go for those with incomes between $200,000 and $2,200,000 that pay no income taxes but then maybe he’s one of them.
Phil Cardarella
8 months, 1 week agoRomney sounds dismissive because he is.
I suspect this was taped by someone with the caterers. I have noticed that the wealthy often think of servants simply as pieces of furniture with trays. They can usually rely on their actual employees to be discreet — much as the house servants of the Old South were usually loyal to their masters. But, waiters have eyes and ears — and, now, digital recorders.
If you are going to complain to your fellow nobility that the peasants are are ungrateful and smelly, you best be more alert about security.
Phil Cardarella
8 months, 1 week agoOf course, it is irresponsible of these peasants to have failed to be born into a rich family that could sent them to boarding school and Stanford and Harvard — and provide a healthy trust fund! Why some of those peasants actually had to go to Vietnam, rather that the far more pleasant French-speaking nation of France!
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 1 week agoI am sure the 3 Musketeers will be blogging on this tomorrow saying it is Romney’s fault that the WH lied….
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/18/white-house-opens-door-explanations-libya/
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 1 week agoMaybe ms. shelly missed this quote from the big 0:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge3aGJfDSg4
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 1 week agoSome data regarding Rmney’s remarks for the libs:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/18/the-data-behind-romneys-47-comments/
John Cook
8 months, 1 week agoIt is clear message form Romney. If you are a college student that needs a loan to go to graduate school, then that is redistributing wealth. Too bad…. also, too bad for national defense in staffing for the new software systems and too bad for the long term high tech companies that our nation needs.
George Hunsucker
Northland
8 months, 1 week agoRefresh my memory John… didn’t private enterprise offer college loans before the big 0 stopped those in favor of the ever-present federal govt. doing loans??????
Phil Cardarella
8 months agoWhen I was in law school, government loans weree at 3% (CDs paid 6%+) and interest was deferred until graduation. We actually wanted kids educated. I think it was under something named the National Defense Education Act — because BOTH parties understood that education IS a national defense issue.
Then the Greed Lobby took over, and kids borrowed at 6%+ immediate compound interest — and graduated under a mountain of debt to banks —banks who actually had no risk since the feds guaranteed the loans and who were effectively able to borrow money from the Fed for free.
That means far fewer option for employment — since the banks owned the grads. Do you take a $40K teaching job that you love and are good at or one that pays more, so you can pay off your loans? Especially since Congress effectively reintroduced Debtor’s Prison for them by making those loans not dischargable in bankruptcy.
So, yes, “private enterprise” did take over — by lobbying to rig the system to make money for themselves at a cost to the nation — to turn our nation’s investment in education into a consumer debt machine for themselves.
Don’t it just make ya proud?
JR Beillenhouser
8 months agoLook over here…don’t look at what is going on in the Middle East.