The Obama campaign went out on the streets of a major city today and asked voters how they feel about Mitt Romney’s candid and disparaging remarks indicating what he really thinks of Obama voters. The video the Obama campaign has made is titled “47 per cent”.
This is the final 31 minutes or so of the Boca Raton, FL, fundraiser, surreptitiously recorded on May 17, 2012, released September 17 an 18. Thanks to Mother Jones and David Corn for their steadfast work on this story. Part I is here.
Last night, in Mitt’s hastily arranged press conference–where for the first time ever, I noticed his hair looking quite mussed–he tried to leave people w/the impression that his already-notorious words disparaging Obama voters may have been taken out context. He weirdly, to me, sounded as if he were begging David Corn for mercy. It put him very much in the position of the supplicant. And that’s where he started today, with Corn and Mother Jones going with revelation of his two-faced attitude about Israelis and Palestinians.
Now, however, Corn has just posted this:
He claimed his comments where merely a “snippet” and not the “full response.” That was not true; his comments were shown in full. He added, “I hope the person who has the video would put out the full material.” Romney is not the only one who has called for the release of the full 49-minute video. And we’re more than happy to oblige. The complete video demonstrates that Romney was not snippetized and that he was captured raw and uncut. Here it is, in two parts:
I’ll also get their video up soon on this site. For now, please use the link above Here’s Part I:
For Part II of the video, please visit this separate post of mine.
As if Mitt’s 47% remarks weren’t already totally revealing of his disdain for people less well-off than himself, another part of the same leaked tape includes this doozy, where he claims he wishes he’d been born a Latino.
What does Mitt mean–that had he been born Latino, he could somehow have taken advantage of affirmative action? There are some other lines that slay me , referring to his father, whose own father had chosen to leave the United States so he could continue practicing polygamous Mormonism,
“Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico.. . . .it would be helpful to be Latino.”
I scarcely know how to write about such idiotic words.
Late Monday Update: This link is to the entire Mother Jones piece by David Corn that unearthed the video of Mitt Romney disparaging Obama voters. Corn’s piece is excellent reporting, and goes well beyond the video that has so quickly become notorious, and emblematic of Romney’s disdain for close to half the country.
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This afternoon Taegan Goddard’s PoliticalWire.com has posted shocking audio and video of Mitt Romney, at a fundraiser, characterizing Obama voters in a most denigrating way. The whole clip runs about 2 minutes. Here’s an excerpt quote from PoliticalWire.com:
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 adds: “My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Here’s the clip:
This feels like a kind of bombshell.
Sometime after it appeared on politicalwire.com, the Obama Campaign sent out these remarks:
STATEMENT ON ROMNEY’S BEHIND CLOSED DOORS REMARKS
CHICAGO – “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.” – Jim Messina, Obama for America Campaign Manager
Surprisingly candid put downs of the Romney campaign and their day of campaigning on Friday, from named and unnamed Repubs in this Washington Post article headlined “Romney’s Campaign Day Lacks Focus,” by Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty:
“Coming at a moment of international crisis, as U.S. embassies in the Middle East were being beset by anti-American protests, the interview [on “Live” with Kelly Ripa] brought shudders from some Republicans who fear the Romney campaign is running aground in its final stretch.
‘Deaver is turning over in his grave,’ said one prominent Republican strategist, referring to Michael Deaver, the late image-maker for Ronald Reagan. The Republican asked for anonymity, because he did not want to go public with his growing despair over the GOP ticket’s prospects for winning this fall.
‘I can’t get my head around this,’ said John Weaver, a former strategist on Republican John McCain’s presidential campaigns. ‘What is their message? What is going on here?'”
#FridayReads, August 31–“Wilderness” by Lance Weller. This is a novel occurring post-Civil War, though set not in the south like Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain or The Sands of Pride by my own author William R. Trotter. Instead, this is set in 1899, more than thirty years after the end of the war, with a protagonist, Abel Truman, who is scratching out an existence for himself in the Pacific Northwest, on the edge of the western-facing ocean. Coming from Bloomsbury in September, I am reading and really enjoying an advance reading copy (ARC) I got at Book Expo America (BEA), back at the beginning of the summer.
Also reading Matt Taibbi’s investigative article in Rolling Stone, “Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital,” full of revelations on how Mitt Romney manipulated Federal regulators in to allowing Bain & Company (as distinct from Bain Capital) to reclaim money that ought to have been returned to the Treasury.
Second Update, two days later: At Jim Romenesko’s media site, it’s reported that Murray Energy is suing a reporter in Charleston, WV, Ken Ward, Jr. for supposedly defaming CEO Bob Murray. Murray is the boss in the two posts below, responsible for docking the pay of workers and who were pushed to attend a pro-Romney rally on Aug. 14. Ken Ward, Jr. had written:
“renegade coal operator Bob Murray played a major role recently in a campaign fundraiser in Wheeling, W.Va., for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney” and that “the question for Governor Romney, of course, is whether he thinks criminal behavior by coal companies, especially when it kills workers and damages the environment, is acceptable. If not, why is he buddies with Bob Murray?”
H/t Jim Romenesko
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I posted the story below at about 2PM this afternoon, and see this evening that ThinkProgress has already pushed the story beyond what I knew earlier. Bob Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, the coal company that in some fashion compelled their employees to attend an Aug. 14 rally for Mitt Romney, and then docked workers’ pay for the day, is a prolific denialist of climate change, someone who claims that scientists are trying to make money off climate change. That’s rich–a guy who’s made his own fortune digging and shipping coal is accusing other folks of trying to cash in on cleaning up his mess.
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You may have recently seen this photo, taken near a coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio, with a story on Mitt Romney bashing President Obama’s energy policy. Turns out, according to a segment broadcast by West Virginia radio show host David Blomquist and a report by Sabrina Eaton in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, those miners were docked a day’s pay when the mine closed for the day so their employer, Murray Energy, could hand over their facility to the Republican candidate for the day. What’s more, the miners may have been compelled by their employer to attend the pro-Romney event–Blomquist heard from miners who told him this, while the company denied it with a perfectly Orwellian statement: “Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore . . .told Blomquist that managers ‘communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend.’ He said the company did not penalize no-shows.”
Got that? “Attendance. . . was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend.” Aren’t people embarrassed to say stuff like this? According to Blomquist’s interview with Moore, which you can hear via this link to the show on radio station WWVA, the executive seems to want people to believe that after the event the company decided they wouldn’t enforce the rule, and would let any no-shows off the hook. Mitt and his minions commit crimes against language as handily as they exploit workers.
Eaton’s Plain Dealer article ends with this telling piece of information:
Please share this story widely as possible among your social networks–it’s emblematic of the whole campaign and why the fate of the middle class is at stake in this year’s election.