Romney Addresses His Media Opponents About the 47%

It's a pretty good performance. Whatever the question, he addresses it briefly, then he turns to the economy.

As of now, this whole contretemps is a net-negative, because if you're defending/explaining, you're losing.

That said, some people might take heart that Romney does seem to a stronger opponent of the "government-centered society" than suspected.

A few points about what he said at the fundraiser: People are offering various things he could have said to make the statements more politically useful as public statements.

For example, something Romney doesn't mention, but which is a political winner (which I've not seen anyone note): Among the people dependent on government are Obama's various Clients in taxpayer-supported pretendustry. Such a statement would insulate him against the meme being pushed by the media, that he hates poor people. No, he hates rich people sucking off the government teat, too.

But I have to note: The reason this didn't have the relentlessly-edited and focus-grouped technical perfection of a public statement is that it wasn't meant to be a public statement. Some asshole stung him.

Fine. He'll just have to treat private statements as public ones. (Perhaps he should have been doing so already; but then, if you pay a lot of money to have a lunch with Romney you'd like to hear him go off script once in a while.)

Overall, a net-negative snafu, but not as serious as the press is trying to make it. Obama called small-town Pennsylvanians bitter clingers and still won their vote.

And Speaking Of: Jay Carney now says his boss' bitter clinger remarks were actually a wonderful method of trying to engage Those People, even though he wasn't addressing Those People when he uttered them, but was in fact addressing people who despised Those People.

This also contradicts his statement -- when he was supposedly a journalist -- that this was a real problem for Obama.

posted by Ace at 02:26 PM

| Access Comments