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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

2012 Mitt Romney Flip-Flops on Poor People

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 11:46 AM

It didn't take long for Mitt to make a mess of his "I'm not concerned about poor people" comments from this morning. On his campaign jet, he tried to back out of it:

"No no no no. No no. You've got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different. I've said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is gonna be devoted to helping middle income people, all right? We have a safety net for the poor in, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that. And if there are people that are falling through the cracks I want to fix that," Romney said. "Wealthy people are doing fine. But my focus in the campaign is on middle income people. Of course I'm concerned about all Americans — poor, wealthy, middle class, but the focus of my effort will be on middle income families who I think have been most hurt by the Obama economy."

Mitt-to-English translation: So he is not concerned about poor Americans because he's too busy being concerned about all Americans. He is not concerned about the poor specifically because they have a safety net. He's not sure if that safety net has holes in it, but if it does, he will fix it, because then he's concerned about poor people, even though poor people have gotten through this economic downturn unscathed, apparently. If the safety net—or perhaps the floor below the safety net—develops cracks, he will also fix those cracks. But mostly he's not concerned about poor people because, like the rich, they're doing okay. Mitt Romney's primary—or quite possibly his only, if certain standards with safety nets and/or the floor below those safety nets are met—concern is the middle class. Stop trying to transform his simple, easy-to-understand beliefs into a gotcha statement, you meanies!

Comments (14) RSS

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There is a class of American'ts who are happy wallowing in the 'saftey' net all their lives. These folks are good loyal Democrap voters. They can fuck off and die. Politics ain't beanbag.

Posted by Real America. Pissed Off and Not Going To Take It Anymore on February 1, 2012 at 11:50 AM

"No no no no. No no. You've got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different"
.. . i'm waiting for the extended 12 inch consolidated 2012 up in this bitch remix. that isht is gonna be DOPE !

Posted by reverend dr dj riz on February 1, 2012 at 11:53 AM

Love the translation, Paul. Keep up the good work.

Posted by Clayton on February 1, 2012 at 11:57 AM

Why would he want to fix the net? I thought he wanted everyone to be rich. Wouldn't there then be no need for a net?

Posted by stinkbug on February 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM

if the rich are doing fine, maybe they could afford to contribute more to mending the safety net.

Posted by Max Solomon on February 1, 2012 at 12:03 PM

Oh he's going to fix that net. He'll fix that net really good.

Posted by Grrr on February 1, 2012 at 12:05 PM

Shorter Romney: "Romney-badger don't give a shit."

Posted by COMTE

on February 1, 2012 at 12:09 PM

When I read "Romney flip-flops on poor people", I get a vision of Mitt Romney as Scrooge McDuck and poor people as his room full of money. Except he has that room full of money, too; it's just that sometimes, a guy likes to roll around in something a bit squishier than gold coins.

Posted by MacCrocodile on February 1, 2012 at 12:22 PM

46 million people are merely a blip? The "Obama economy" what an idiot.

Posted by biffp on February 1, 2012 at 1:35 PM

@8 Thanks for that.

Posted by OuterCow on February 1, 2012 at 1:53 PM

KOMEN'S CORPORATE SPONSORS:

http://ww5.komen.org/CorporatePartners.a…

Those corporations might be interested in hearing how you feel about the way Komen isn't dispensing their funds.

Posted by judybrowni on February 1, 2012 at 2:49 PM

Boy, this is going to be a cakewalk for Obama.

It will be fun to watch the Republicans pick their scapegoat (Boehner or Romney) and move on, rather than look within.

Posted by Free Lunch on February 1, 2012 at 8:27 PM

He doesn't care about the super rich or the super poor. Of course, he's already proposing massive tax cuts for the super rich to add to the massive tax cuts they've already received over the last few decades. He'll fix the holes in the social safety net if there's any money left once he's done cutting taxes on the rich to 0.

Posted by Root on February 2, 2012 at 7:09 AM

@12, Don't get cocky. That's exactly the sort of thing people were saying after the 2008 election. I don't know how many times I read here on SLOG about how Republicans were a dying breed and they'd be extinct soon enough. There are plenty of backwards yahoos that are still willing to vote against their interest and the interest of our country to get more tax cuts for the wealthy and more Christian Taliban rule.

Posted by Root on February 2, 2012 at 7:14 AM