I go away for a week—technical difficulties—and the man John Cassidy calls The Mittster hands his foes a new slogan to chant: “We are the 47%!” If you prefer the Dems—and the reality-based community does—the man his parents named Willard is the gift that keeps giving. Let us have his words before us:
All right, there are forty-seven per cent 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. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this President no matter what. . . . These are people who pay no income tax. . . . My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
I remember worrying, back when Rick Perry was trying to recall what Cabinet departments he’d eliminate and the other Rick was fulminating about the evils of contraception, that the Republicans would have the good sense to nominate Romney. That now seems like a long time ago, but, the hell of it is, The Mittster really was, and is, the best choice they had. He’s a terrible candidate, but any of the other contenders would have been worse. Bachmann. Cain. Gingrich. Is the right word “outlandish”? Maybe OMG and WTF are better. What has become of the GOP?
On the other hand, a few of the commentating right-handers seem still to reside on Planet Earth. Rich Lowry: “The overall impression of Romney at this event is of someone who overheard some conservative cocktail chatter and maybe read a conservative blog or two, and is thoughtlessly repeating back what he heard and read.” David Brooks: “Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare? . . . The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high-school degrees.”
Well, you could go on forever quoting what people have said about what Willard said. I only want to emphasize that, besides being impolitic, The Mittster is just wrong on the facts. (I think "inelegant" is how he pronounces "wrong.") Income may once have been a reliable indicator of how one marks an election ballot. But no more. (Better test: “How many Christian worship services did you attend last month?”).Andrew Sullivan has posted a map showing where the 47% of mooching slacker victims live. The highest percentages of them are in some of the reddest states. According to exit polls of the last election, Obama got 52% of the vote among people who earn more than $200,000 a year. Willard may not have read the conservative bloggers on “limousine liberals.” He’s also too pessimistic about his appeal to those he gobs spit upon.
Oh, one last thing. It’s not just about Willard. Amy Davidson has an enjoyable post on a few of the cameos.