It’s not Romney’s Blunders, It’s His Message.

… Laura Ingraham recently argued that the 2012 presidential race should be a “gimme” …. With high unemployment and underemployment … Americans should be flocking to the Republican ticket.

Ms. Ingraham attributes the fact that President Barack Obama is leading in the polls after the convention not to the Democrats’ effective indictment of failed Republican policies but to Mitt Romney’s blunders. [This] however, insult[s] the intelligence of the American people.

Isn’t it equally plausible that thoughtful Americans are rejecting Mitt Romney because of his radical positions on abortion,  on Roe v. Wade, Medicare, tax cuts for millionaires, deregulation, marriage equality, climate change and China?

Mitt Romney is the empty vessel that Republican voters chose to carry their extreme right-wing message. Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Gov. Rick Perry would be suffering the same fate with the same message.

Granted, Mr. Romney as messenger is detached and unlikable. But so is his message.

But is Romney simply an empty suit?

On the Fox News program Fox & Friends, described here, Laura Ingraham was upset over the airplay Romney’s 47% statement was getting. Steve Doocy, one of the “Fox Pundits” asked “What did he say that’s wrong?” Ingraham answered,

The percentage might be off by one or two percentage points depending on how you formulate it. The bottom line is Mitt Romney speaking at a fundraiser about the challenges a Republican faces in this presidential race – not all that unlike what political pundits, many of them hyperventilating today, have said. That there is a small slice of the electorate that is undecided. That’s basically what he said there.

No, Ms. Ingraham, that’s not what he said. Courtesy of Mother Jones, that  speaking at a fundraising event on May 17, 2012, Mitt Romney said,

1. There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.
2. All right, there are 47% who are with him,
   
3. who are dependent upon government,
4. who believe that they are victims,
5. who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them,
6. who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
7. That that’s an entitlement.
8. And the government should give it to them.
9. And they will vote for this president no matter what…
10. These are people who pay no income tax…
11. [M]y job is is not to worry about those people.
12. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Statements 1, 2, & 9 are reasonable.

Statement 11 is fine if Romney meant to add ‘Voting for me”, as in  “my job is not to worry about these people VOTING FOR ME.” But, if elected, his job would be to worry about those people.  As Obama has put it, the President is President of everybody. Not the red states, not the blue states, but the United States.

This is why statements 3, 4, 5, 6, & 12 are incredibly obnoxious. As noted here, the 47% includes soldiers in uniform, disabled veterans, and retired citizens – people who generally do not consider themselves to be “victims” but people to whom we do owe something.

As Mr. Frank asked,

It’s plausible to think that Romney was relaxed at the fund-raiser. It’s also plausible to think that he was saying what he really believes. Unlike his positions on health care, human rights for women, civil rights for gay people, and science, he hasn’t flip-flopped away from it. But if he loses the election because of it, the USA will have a better President.

The real question, however, is “What is the government for?”