On the morning after the Florida primary, Mitt Romney bounded out of bed, inhaled the sweet air of victory, donned his new cloak of invulnerability ...
... and went on CNN to announce that he doesn’t care about poor people.
“I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he told a slightly stunned-looking Soledad O’Brien.
Whenever the topic turns to wealth, or the lack thereof, some inner demon seems to make Romney say something that sounds ridiculous, offensive or ridiculously offensive.
If this had been post-South Carolina, we might have assumed that he was making a play for the segment of his party that believes the greatest threat to the American way of life is greedy paupers. But the nomination was in the bag! Mitt was just being Mitt and trying to present himself as the candidate of the middle class, which he defined as “the 90-95 percent of Americans who, right now, are struggling.” Subtract the 1 percent at the top and Romney appeared to be saying that he was absolutely not going to direct his campaign at the bottom 4 percent of the American public. That certainly makes sense politically, since you are talking — according to my very rough calculations — mostly about folks who are living in households with incomes under $5,000. Not a group with terrific turnout.
Let’s deconstruct his entire remarks:
I’m in this race because I care about ... (tiniest of pauses)... Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. ...
I don’t think he actually meant to suggest the very poor were not Americans. But still.
We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. ...
Does anybody truly believe that Romney is planning to spend any presidential time dreaming up ways to fix the safety net for the benefit of the very poor? Be real. This is the guy who drove to Canada with the family dog strapped on the roof.
I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. ...
Gee, he should know.
I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who, right now, are struggling.
Difficult as these times are, I don’t think 90 percent to 95 percent of Americans are struggling. If they were, the whole country would look like a scene out of “Contagion” or “The Walking Dead.”
We will hear from the Democrat Party (about) the plight of the poor. ...
Not really. If we had a dollar for every speech President Obama has given about the poor, we would ... not have a lot of money. However, it is interesting to hear a candidate directly attacking the opposition for being concerned about the destitute.
And there’s no question, it’s not good being poor. ...
Here, Mitt Romney demonstrates his capacity for empathy.
And we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle-income Americans. My campaign — you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich. That’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That’s not my focus. ...
This is the third time in less than two minutes that he’s mentioned that he does not really give a fig about the people who make under $5,000 a year.
My focus is on middle-income Americans: Retirees living on Social Security. People who can’t find work. ...
Whoa! Do you think he’s suggesting that the very poor do not have a problem finding work? That they’re too lazy to look? Or does he just figure that they’re all disabled, or children, or old people who don’t get Social Security? That would be pretty harsh. And weird, if he’s trying to say: “I only care about the elderly if they made enough money to qualify for Social Security. The rest are doing fine under government programs.”
Folks that have kids that are getting ready to go to college. These are the people who have been most badly hurt during the Obama years. We have a very ample safety net, and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps. We have Medicaid. We have housing vouchers. We have programs to help the poor. ...
Romney seems obsessed with the idea that his enemies are spreading rumors that he’s going to be devoting his presidential campaign to proposing new programs to help the poor. Really, I do not think this is going to be a problem.
But the middle-income Americans, they’re the folks that are really struggling right now. And they need someone that can help get this economy going for them.
That’s the end. Rest assured that Mitt Romney is not going to be spending a single second fretting about the problems of really, really poor people. His supporters can breathe a sigh of relief. Now all they’re going to have to worry about is the fact that he’s going to keep talking like this for the next nine months.
