The Video Embarrassment to Mitt Romney's Campaign

Nothing is going well anymore in Romney’s camp. Sunday night, Politico recounted the battle at the heart of the Republican candidate’s advisory team. Today, videos are weighing down his campaign. Mother Jones magazine published them on its website on Monday, September 17. They are blurred to protect the identity of the person who filmed them and put them online — a certain “Anne Onymous” — as well as the identities of those who paid to hear the Republican candidate speak on May 17 during a dinner at the home of investment banker Marc Leder in Boca Raton, Florida.

These videos dive into the private side of Mitt Romney’s campaign. They show how a candidate behaves when he isn’t held to a speech crafted for a television audience. For instance he says: “This is between us, between Republicans.”* Between Republicans, it is said that half of American society is useless, that there are those who work to succeed and those who are supported by the government, that there are also lost sheep independents, and that he needs to know how to open their eyes without jarring them in order to win on November 6.

“Forty-Seven Percent Dependent on the Government”

And what does Mitt Romney say? That, no matter what he does:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that 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 I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48 — he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so 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. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.”

And he is going after independent voters who voted for Barack Obama, who still like the president, but who admit to being disappointed by his politics and his results.

“They want to think they did the right thing but he just wasn’t up to the task.”

On the other hand, he is certain that Barack Obama will denigrate him, attack his success, that he will point out the closing businesses and the layoffs [in businesses acquired by Bain Capital]. Mitt Romney admits that this might work for the Democratic candidate.

The candidate claims to be reassuring his audience. He mentions his campaign team, made up of consultants that worked on the campaigns of other candidates throughout the world, including the notable campaign of Benjamin Netanyahu.

To a campaign contributor who reproaches him for not attacking Barack Obama with sufficiently developed intellectual arguments, the candidate responds that the campaign is no place for intellectual debate. He mentions his book and the documents accessible on his website, and he supposes that these will not be the factors that help or harm his chances at election. He believes that campaign commercials and the three debates will have the most impact on voters. To illustrate his point he points to Barack Obama, who won in 2008 with a campaign based on two themes: hope and change.

If he is in a position to be elected, and if he is elected, the markets will react well, the economy will regain some optimism, and capital will return to the United States. If Barack Obama wins on November 6, he can’t predict how the markets will react. Above all, he is concerned about a tax explosion and a Congress dominated by Democrats, which will have frightening consequences for the United States.

Damage Control

Social networking sites seized this footage very quickly. Gail Gitcho, the candidate’s spokesperson, added:

“Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy. As the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government, including the record number of people who are on food stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million Americans who are struggling to find work.”

A little later, in Orange County, California, the candidate clarified his thoughts: yes, his commentary was not stated in an elegant manner, yes, it was delivered off the cuff in response to a question, and yes, it could have been said more clearly. But no, he is not retracting anything about the 47 percent of Americans who are on government assistance.

Obama’s Blunder in 2008

Barack Obama should also know what to stick to. In 2008 during a fundraiser in San Francisco, he said, in front of his audience:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. … they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment.”

Barack Obama’s campaign team wasted no time in responding to Mitt Romney. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, published a statement on the president’s website:

“It’s shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.”

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.