In a week or so, we just might catch President Obama’s people delivering a bunch of roses to Mitt Romney’s people.
Or rather, to that person who secretly recorded the Republican challenger a few months ago, as he let loose with a string of stereotypes about struggling voters during a private fundraiser with millionaires.
The video, which was obtained by the investigative news magazine Mother Jones, shows Romney describing his campaign priorities. Poor people, or for that matter, anyone not in a position to attend one of his thousands-of-dollars-per-plate fundraisers, were not only off his radar screen.
They were under his boot heel, as well.
Said Romney: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, 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.”
He didn’t stop there.
“My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Ah, there’s “those people,” again.
Oh, and he also took a shot at Latinos – another huge block of voters that are mostly poised to vote for Obama.
Said Romney of his father, George, who was born to American parents living in Mexico: “Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this.”
I’m wondering how well that sentiment would have gone over with the Latinos he spoke to Monday during the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce meeting in Los Angeles.
Mother Jones isn’t releasing the exact date of the video in order to protect the person who turned it over, although it has verified its authenticity. But that person might as well have wrapped it up as a gift to the Obama campaign.
I say this because if this video does nothing else, it should insult people who are struggling economically, but who are wavering about whether to vote, to vote against Romney.
It’s one thing for jobless Americans, many of whom have been pushed into the ranks of poverty because of the prolonged economic downturn, to be disillusioned if they haven’t yet felt the love from the stimulus or other attempts by the Obama administration to fix this limping economy.
But it’s quite another thing for them to let a man win who believes, in essence, that they’re lazy and want handouts, and their misfortune is due to character flaws and a lack of responsibility.
It’s quite another thing for them to allow a man to win who tells a bunch of rich people that he doesn’t care about people in their predicament; to hear Romney, a man who has never walked in the shoes of the less fortunate, to rely on the Rush Limbaugh school of lazy, racist thinking to shape his plans for this country.
And when I say lazy, I mean lazy.
First of all, Obama commands most of the support among working voters. Back in May, Gallup did a survey which showed that professional workers – who at 21 percent make up the largest category of working voters – favored Obama over Romney by 51 to 42 percent. The second largest group of working voters, service workers, favored Obama over Romney by 53 to 39 percent.
Romney led in the other categories, but the operative word here is “working voters.”
Those Obama voters don’t sound like people looking for a handout.
Which means that Romney, in his zeal to score points with rich people who disdain Obama and are insistent on painting him as a black man who uses his office to enable poor people rather than empower them, was too lazy to even check his facts about a large chunk of the country he’d be governing.
Still, just the idea that a presidential candidate can cavalierly dismiss much of the people in this nation as moochers shows how, if elected, he’d make life even more miserable for people grappling with poverty and other forms of injustice.
Hopefully, it will help enough voters understand that if a presidential candidate like Romney has this much disdain for them, the last thing they need to do is arm him with their apathy.
To view the video, go HERE.
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Tonyaa Weathersbee is an award-winning columnist who is based in Jacksonville, Fla. Follow her at tonyaajw@twitter. Or visit her website and blog, “Tonyaa’s Take,” at www.tonyaajweathersbee.com.
