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 Post subject: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:48 am 
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The secret Romney fundraiser video has been getting a surprising amount of attention. I thought the Liberal Media™ would downplay it but I guess it was too juicy to pass up. What do you guys think about this look into private world of preaching to the choir? I understand the argument but have trouble believing that he misspoke. To me it fit perfectly with the impression I got from the dog on the roof story. His treatment of his own pet seemed like a symptom of someone not malicious, but with a callous indifference to those perceived to be beneath himself. It would be too easy to find and post examples of conservatives/Republicans referring to liberals/Democrats as inferior. If Romney holds that same view of the opposition then it all fits and is not a quality I think is good in someone who could be the leader of our diverse nation.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:06 am 
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I simply think he's one of many rich guys who was never poor and so has no idea what it is to be working poor and thus qualified to not pay income tax.

I also feel that he was never hungry, ill without the means to pay a doctor or without proper housing, which is why he called these things "entitlements" rather than "requirements to lead a life beyond mere survival."

And finally, and this is important because there ARE rich guys who aren't that obtuse, I believe he was never taught to put himself in the shoes of someone without money, so now in his 60s he simply can't go there mentally. It reminds me of W. Bush telling a woman working three jobs to support her family "good for you." If you are raised in money and never made to see how those without money live and never told that life is more than acquiring more money, and being simply a "decent" guy is acceptable, then this sort of affable apathy will develop. He doesn't know and so he really, truly, doesn't care.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:33 am 
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I'm not really surprised at the media attention; my perception is that the media is much more eager to pounce on something Romney says than Obama. What surprises me is that anybody is acting surprised. It's poorly worded, sure, but what he appears to actually mean is not anything that he hasn't said publicly (albeit more tactfully) in the past:

Romney wrote:
There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% 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.... [My] job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.


His mistake here is he was very careless in his wording:

  • He asserts that everyone in that 47% category is "blindly" voting for Obama. I'm quite certain that some portion of those people are in fact open to the possibility of being persuaded to vote for someone else.
  • His wording invites people to think he means that everyone in that 47% belongs to all of those categories of people he names, instead of what he appears to mean, which is that significant portions of that 47% constitute people in those categories.
  • He says that people feel that "they are entitled to heath care, to food, to housing." Of course people need and should have these things, but what I believe Romney means is that some people may feel that it should be the government's responsibility to provide these things. Instead, he comes off as someone who doesn't care if people are sick, hungry and homeless.
  • His statement that it's his job not to worry about that 47% causes people to think that he means that he doesn't care at all about them, instead of what he really means, which is that his campaign shouldn't worry about them, since nothing he says or does will convince them to vote for him anyway, so any effort expended trying to convince them is wasted.

If I were Romney, I would probably have worded what I believe he meant something like this: "There are some people pay no income tax. There are also some people who believe that it is the government's responsibility to take care of them. The people in these groups overwhelmingly favor Obama. Many of them will not even consider voting for me, because I want to reduce the number of people not paying income tax and living on the government dole. What they may not realize is that I don't want to cut people off and starve them. I want to fix the economy so that people can be successful, make more money, can afford to pay taxes and contribute to society, and not need a government handout."

Lest you think I'm being Romney's cheerleader, I would say that the carelessness he displayed in his wording is not something I'd like to see in a president.

It bothers me that almost nobody's talking about the fact that the person who was taking that video was committing a crime.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:40 am 
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As a note, too, it's not just indifference to people but facts. Romney named the 47% as the people who will support Obama no matter what, but one of the main groups that don't pay income taxes is the elderly, and the working poor are more common in red states than blue states. Really, he's dismissing his own supporters here. And no, AT, I see no particular reason to believe that he meant to say he only wasn't interested in them for the purpose of the campaign; if that is the case, he can make it clear, instead of expecting everyone to find the most positive spin on his words for him.

Out of curiosity, what kind of crime was releasing the video? I know Romney had asked for his comments not to be recorded, but by itself that doesn't seem like much of a legal constraint - on the same order as taking photos at a concert after they've asked me not to.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:04 pm 
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I'm not saying that releasing the video was a crime; recording it in the first place was. The event in question was a private event taking place on private property in Florida, and the people in the video were being filmed without their knowledge. This Forbes article breaks it down:

Marc Weber Tobias wrote:
It’s illegal in twelve states to record covertly at least the audio portion of a conversation where all parties have not consented. One of those states is Florida. In all fifty states under the Federal Wiretapping statute, at least one party must consent to a recording being made covertly. In Florida, it is either a felony or a high grade misdemeanor under 934.03 for the individual who made the secret recordings of Romney to have done so. The penalty in this case for first offense under the Florida statute pursuant to section 775.082 (4)(a) is up to one year in prison, unless the offense is committed for commercial gain.


And I agree with you that he needs to make sure he's really saying what he means, which was kind of the whole point of my previous post. I was saying what I personally believed he meant, but since he was not clear about it, he fully deserves it if someone takes a negative interpretation of it.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:54 pm 
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There are people that will vote for one candidate or another simply because of the party affiliation. Romney will benefit from that effect almost as much as Obama will. I don't think that number is as high as 47%.

The assertion that Romney's verbal gaffs are scrutinized more depends on who you listen too and/or watch. If you are watching NBC/CBS/ABC/CNN then yes I would say that may be the case. Talk radio and Fox tend to put more light on Obama gaffs (actually it is Biden that makes more gaffs than Obama since the president barely says anything without a script.)

Romney can't relate, but I don't think Obama can either. Both have had a privileged lives although through different paths. Obama is just a whole lot better at faking it than Romney is.

Of course this doesn't matter much because I will be one of the 6%.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:21 pm 
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Jorodryn wrote:
Of course this doesn't matter much because I will be one of the 6%.

Johnson getting 6% would make me so happy, I don't even have words to describe it.

And really it has nothing to do with the Electoral College LANDSLIDE Obama would win in as a result.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:38 pm 
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I just meant 6% that won't be voting for Obama or Romney. Although I would love to see that number a lot higher. Johnson will not be on the ballot in Michigan. I will have to check if write ins for him in Michigan will be valid. Which would leave my only choice being Virgil Goode.

I have been torn between Johnson and Goode for a while. Johnson not being on the ballot does make the choice easier for me.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:06 pm 
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Yesterday I saw even someone from the American Enterprise Institute (think tank more conservative than Scrooge McDuck) criticize Romney's words! I think a lot of conservatives have realized that if anything, it's really bad electoral strategy to focus solely on winning the votes of those rich enough to pay income taxes. Income taxes were reduced or eliminated for low-income people due to conservative policy initiatives during the 1980s and 1990s; the whole point was to help people out of poverty by letting them keep their money. The Late Great free market economist Milton Friedman even supported a negative income tax for the poorest people - that's the principle behind the Earned Income Tax Credit. Isn't helping people help themselves what conservatism used to be about? It wasn't "if you're not making lots of money, you are a mooching lazy loser and probably a socialist so I'm not going to bother winning your vote anyway."*

Furthermore, the proportion of people not paying income tax went up during the recession because Obama gave them a tax break as a stimulus measure. That's what the Republicans wanted at the time, wasn't it? A stimulus measure made up entirely of tax breaks? Or did they only mean tax breaks for the rich?

Incidentally, conservative commentators have also had a bee in their bonnet about those "lucky duckies"** who are too poor to pay income tax; they ignore that the majority of those people still pay payroll taxes, which is a deliberately regressive tax. They're paying into Medicare and Social Security, which are two of the biggest government expenditures apart from defence.

As for the perception that the media doesn't pounce on Obama's gaffes, you have got to be kidding me. He got plenty of flack for his "guns and religion" comment when he was first running for president, and lately his whole "you didn't build, that" comment, though taken out of context, became a huge meme that was even heavily used during the RNC.

* I speculate that Romney said this to his funders as an excuse for why his poll numbers weren't higher. "I can't be blamed if nearly half the population are completely unreasonable entitled Obama fanatics, just look at the material I've got to work with here!" It's a case of "Ma, I only got a D because the teacher is out to get me!"
** So said a Wall Street Journal editorial some years ago. I would have loved to make a Wall Street Journal editor live on such a low income for a few years and then ask him how lucky he felt.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:22 am 
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Jorodryn wrote:
I have been torn between Johnson and Goode for a while. Johnson not being on the ballot does make the choice easier for me.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but you might have to make up your mind anyway.

Firstly, there's still the chance that the Libertarian Party will win their appeal to the 6th Circuit (though it is true that SCOTUS has declined to intervene).

Second, you don't actually vote for Presidential candidates: rather, you vote for electors, and the Libertarian Party is certainly qualified to have its electors on the ballot, even if the name listed on the ballot can't be Johnson's because he was 3 minutes late withdrawing his name for the Republican primary.

And finally, even if Gary Johnson of Taos, NM, doesn't get to be on the ballot, there's a pretty good shot that Gary E. Johnson of Austin, TX, will be. Mr. Johnson of TX is a prominent libertarian who happens to share a name (and middle initial) with the former NM governor, and it doesn't matter whose name is on the ballot, since the votes are really going for the electors, anyway.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:10 am 
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You know Kea, Scrooge McDuck himself never struck me as all that Conservative, but I'm basing that on the Duck Tales version rather than the anti-Socialist comics.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:19 pm 
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Scrooge McDuck was pretty generous to his family and friends, but rarely showed much concern for the common people of Duckburg. Pretty much everyone is generous to their family and friends, though - it is not a real indication of political leanings.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:36 pm 
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Well, there is the theory that Duck Tales promotes soulless capitalism.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 9:25 am 
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Kea wrote:
Yesterday I saw even someone from the American Enterprise Institute (think tank more conservative than Scrooge McDuck) criticize Romney's words! I think a lot of conservatives have realized that if anything, it's really bad electoral strategy to focus solely on winning the votes of those rich enough to pay income taxes. Income taxes were reduced or eliminated for low-income people due to conservative policy initiatives during the 1980s and 1990s; the whole point was to help people out of poverty by letting them keep their money.


The point was more nearly that the Republicans couldn't get budget busting giveaways for the benefit of the hyper rich enacted unless they threw the rest of us a bone. And not the working poor rest of us, either; if memory serves, spreading EITC around to them was a Clinton initiative. Romney/Ryan have no bone to throw (and wouldn't if they did); so this round of massive tax cuts aren't doing as well in polls as they would hope.

Most of what I see as wrong with Romneys' words here is that 47% is way too low. His crowd believes it's 99%. These are folks who only care about owners; all their praise goes to folks who built a business (or were really, really industrious about clipping the coupons their daddies left them). Labor day? They praise bosses. Romney's speeches? He doesn't talk about workers; the word never even passed his lips during his convention. The attacks on Obama's 'gaffes'? Only the ones which call out the rich and comfortable; if he ever said anything a worker would dislike, you wouldn't know it from the Republicans. Not, mind you, that the rest of the party establishment disagrees with this; but some of them remember that it's bad form to be openly contemptuous of the vast majority of voters.

These folks just love their Ayn Rand.

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 Post subject: Re: 47%
 Post Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:40 pm 
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It is not unusual for Republican and general rightwingers to express, that they are the opponents of the freeloaders and paint people opposing them as freeloaders.

The novel thing about that statement is, that it contains an actual definition, who counts as freeloader. Someone, who does not pay income tax. So now less wealthy rednecks, with hard but badly paid jobs, find themselfs called freeloaders, while latte drinking, hybrid driving elitists are mostly in the clear.

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