Editor’s Note: In the interest of balance, I reached out to GMP writer Mark Ellis in order to get a more politically conservative take on the video that Mother Jones released of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking about “The 47%” at a private fundraiser. We are grateful for his take and willingness to open up the conversation further. -Joanna
When the Good Feed editors asked me to offer a perspective on the secret video of Mitt Romney talking about the 47% of the electorate who will not vote for him, I was heavily obligated, and could not immediately respond.
Now, a few days later, two or three news-cycles have passed, and the right has unearthed a counter-video showing President Obama waxing philosophic about his affinity for the dreaded “redistribution.”
In other words, it’s back to politics as usual.
With the Good Feed prompt, I was obliged to visit a site I’d heard of, but had never read, Mother Jones. For opposition research, my site of choice is Common Dreams, because there I won’t have to get past any dubious allusion as to the concept of matriarchy.
Once at Mother Jones I must say I was underwhelmed by David Corn’s smoking-gun footage.
This is what they’ve got?
As a long time coverer of the conservative beat, I can honestly say that there isn’t one meet-up, rally, or damn garden party at which Mitt Romney’s exact words to his supporters at the private event are not reiterated as a matter of course.
Not more than an hour after watching the video, I heard Washington Examiner columnist Byron York say the same thing to Greta Van Susteren on Fox’s On the Record.
Yes, conservatives, even working-class conservatives like me, worry that our country has reached a tipping point from the standpoint of the ratio of the citizens who’ve grown evermore dependent upon the state. And we know that those people will always vote for more government.
Beyond that, there is the Governor’s mistake of forgetting contemporary society’s cardinal rule: there’s always a recording device of some kind everywhere. While I don’t think there was anything wrong with what Romney said, he obviously needs to be more careful, apparently even when within his party’s inner circles.
In the wake of the secret video’s release, conservative pundits like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others lauded the statement about the unreachable 47%, saying that Romney should fully own it, and that bankruptcy looms for the nation if the imbalance of “takers to makers” is not righted. I agree.
“There’s no more money,” opined Bill O’ Reilly.
Another thought occurred to me, an unfortunate one. The outcry over Romney’s comment presupposes that we still believe that any president represents all of the American people. Do we really buy anymore that leaders elected by razor-thin margins in such polarized times, do?
It’s a wonderful precept, but give me a break.
More problematic for me in the secret video was Governor Romney’s answer to some of his supporters who asked him why he was not floating more specific policy proposals. Romney seemed to indicate that the majority of our nation’s voters were more motivated by vapid, bumper-sticker concepts like “Hope and Change.”
We can’t blame that on Romney or Obama; that’s our problem.
Along those lines, the absolute worst Romney optic of last week had nothing to do with any ostensibly game-changing but in reality painfully obvious comments on a secret video.
It was the spectacle of the Governor on a mainstream daytime talk show discussing Snooki of Jersey Shore and something called Honey Boo Boo.
I’ve gotten to where it doesn’t surprise me when the president appears on something as egregiously beneath the dignity of the office as a show called Pimp with a Limp.
Watching my candidate pretend to care about the most God-awful, lowest-common-denominator programming on television is the bell I wish I could unring.
Photo: AP/Charles Dharapak
The notion that anyone who wants government to act in the public interest is “dependent on a nanny state” is a cornerstone conservative argument in the modern GOP. Romney knows his audience, and even those right-wingers who really ARE dependent on government for their survival in one fashion or another can be relied on to pretend that it’s everyone else who’s an anti-American freeloader.
When your voting base is dumb, you talk dumb to them. And it works!
I was only addressing your final paragraph, but you did specify not belittling people, so my bad on that count. My problem is that appeals to Christianity to support whatever government program usually carry an implicit charge of indifference or hostility rather than starting on neutral ground to discuss possible policy solutions. If that isn’t your position, sorry, but it is an appeal to authority many use to try to discount opposing views as uncaring.
From an electoral standpoint, it’s a nonissue. Regardless of what subsequent polls show, given such questions are addressed in a binary more likely/less likely format and not addressed as definitely will/will not, voters who were going to vote for Romney still will just as Obama voters will remain unperturbed by his newly unearthed video. From a policy standpoint, the problem is the math is wrong. If we’re going to talk about whether or not we want to become a social democracy with lavish entitlements, we need to start from the truth. Ramesh Ponnuru and several others at National Review broke… Read more »
@Ulysses: It’s not only the math that’s wrong (from a policy perspective), it’s also the CONCEPT. Regardless of whether or not 47% of the American people are wholly dependent on the government for their daily bread, and regardless of whether or not they feel entitled to that, let’s look at it from a larger perspective: what does government do for EVERYONE? In a word: any project bigger than painting your neighbor’s house. Ahem. In a small-town environment, if your neighbor needs his house painted, all he needs to do is call you some Sunday afternoon and say, “Ulysses, I need… Read more »
A. The government should not be this abstract foreign entity that does things for us or to us. It’s supposed to be us; the money is ours. Of course, my statement isn’t true, but in an ideal world, the one the framers intended…
B. You’d likely see your argument made more often if the debates featured an anarchist. Despite rhetorical flourishes from opponents, Republicans, conservatives, not even libertarians, are promoting anarchy.
Actually, I think President Obama did make this argument, albeit clumsily, when he said, “You didn’t build that.” Look, nobody asserts that we don’t need any government. But a lot of what is green-lighted by government, Solyndra being just one example, has eroded the faith of many taxpayers that government is spending our money wisely. The reaction then is to withdraw support for governmental largess generally. ie the painting analogy, which is my stock and trade. I don’t mind working hard to earn a living, but when the painter down the block–all things being equal–is subsidized by the government and… Read more »
@Mark Goblowsky Ellis: Speaking as someone who falls on the liberal-pragmatic end of the spectrum (that is, I’m inclined to be financially supportive of the less fortunate, but only if it’s practical), I can’t help but acknowledge the legitimacy of your worry regarding the number of citizens who are wholly dependent on government. That said, I don’t think Romney’s comments are quite that simple. First, he dismissed the so-called “lower-47%” as not only dependent on the government, but also lacking a sense of personal responsibility and/or feeling entitled to aid. I find this statement egregious and problematic: I’ve met my… Read more »
There are alot of things the gov. could do differently to enable poor folks to succeed. For example why not guide students towards working a trade if they don’t want to go to college. I know this has been done but lately it seems education-teachers are not being funded. Another issue is the homeless mentally ill…. Everyone needs food, shelter, money (nowadays) and safely in order to say get a job or education. (Maslow) Society and MI people are all at risk when people become desperate and don’t get the meds (or sleep) they need to be stable. Affordable Housing… Read more »
I think there are two problems with the message Romney conveys. 1) The “47%” that he talks about are predominately from so-called red states. Romney is talking about his own supporters, the elderly, military families, the poor, and – ironically – the super rich who are able to shield their money from income taxes. 2) A president should always assume he is being recorded. This isn’t amateur hour; being able to lead in public and private while staying on message and not appearing to take a cynical dig at the less fortunate is one of the characteristics I expect of… Read more »
The Bible never specified that the only way to help the poor was via government. We can agree about problems, but that doesn’t mean there is only one solution. To assume that the opposite of totally putting poverty, etc issues under the purview of Washington is to let people die in the streets is a bad faith argument.
What bad-faith argument? Who said anything about letting people die in the streets? Did you actually read what I wrote, or were you replying to some other comment?