How to Sabotage Yourself, by Mitt Romney

This campaign looked promising for Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who emerged from the party’s fierce primaries as the most centered and competent amongst his peers.

The economy slides. Obama’s popularity has now, largely, given way to disappointment. The Democrat’s success in fundraising hasn’t yet repeated itself. Partisan polarization has infused those in the anti-Obama camp with a great deal of motivation to vote.

Romney, a man who is recognized — or who tries to be recognized — for his efficiency as an executive, manages to throw what would be an advantage right in the trash. No, Romney doesn’t have some sordid secret. He doesn’t have a nut of a campaign manager. He doesn’t have an unprepared running mate. The candidate did it all on his own, in the present tense, consciously and with his own mouth.

His most recent attempt at self-destruction is the video, brought to light by leftist magazine “Mother Jones” and recorded by an anonymous source via hidden camera, in which Romney tells potential campaign donors that he “doesn’t care” about 47 percent of the electorate which, the way he sees it, will vote for Obama no matter what, don’t pay taxes, depend on the system, etc. His tone is one of disdain.

I don’t think Romney is saying that he will despise those people if he is elected (although some points of the Republican platform make me question that belief). What I took away from his speech was that he doesn’t care about attracting their vote since, for him, they’re a lost (electoral) case.

But no matter. This campaign is being run on negative ads.

In the same way that Romney’s campaign took Obama’s phrase that individual success is also the product of a well-structured society and transformed it into an affirmation that the president thinks the state is responsible for personal accomplishments, less than a day will pass before the Democrat’s campaign takes Romney’s sentence and says that he doesn’t give a damn about the poor and will ignore them if elected.

Another thing: No matter how much the candidate wishes to be direct and pragmatic with those who are funding his campaign, it is not politically — and even less so ethically — healthy to assume that your speech will only be heard by a fraction of the electorate.

Romney doesn’t deserve to take all the (dis)credit. This election is polarized in such a way that it really seems like the campaigns have turned on an amplifier that blurs out either anger toward the opposition or speeches directed to the base of each party (sometimes aimed, possibly, at a contemplative centrist — which are becoming increasingly scarce these days).

Even though spoken at a private event (despite there being enough people there to make one question whether everything would be kept under wraps), putting this pragmatic electoral thought into words has made Romney attract to himself the antipathy of the lower middle class citizen, of those who struggle to make ends meet, of those disgruntled by inequality and of those who are concerned about these people. He also manages to attract the ire of strategists and politicians who know that a campaign’s message needs to be as inclusive as possible.

Yes, the whole “corporations are people” shtick, said during the early stages of the campaign, has turned into a joke and has also made an impact in the progressive electorate, but it is hard to believe that a centrist (and a liberal even less so) has flipped sides due to the statement.

However, saying that half the American population is dependent and irresponsible and condemning 150 million people for struggling to make ends meet is reaching a brand new level of disconnect — a level which may just be irredeemable.