Romney's Not Very Concerned About the Poor

There's something just not quite right about Mitt Romney. It's true he has been governor of a state and did a good job running the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. He made a lot of money at Bain Capital. He reads a script well and has a handsome smile, but when he speaks off the cuff he tends to reveal an astonishingly deaf ear and callously dismissive attitude about those who don't move in his upper crust circles. He talks a lot about regular Americans but doesn't seems to have the slightest comprehension of what being one is really like. Yesterday he committed another huge "gaffe." This is the latest in a now lengthening succession of such verbal missteps. It seems to me when someone keeps saying the same kinds of things over and over it's not an exception or an aberration; it's how a person really thinks.

Yesterday's stunner was, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." The rich are doing "just fine" and the poor have a "safety net" that he will attend to if it needs some fixing, but that's apparently about it. He wants to focus on being president of the middle class, he said. Even Newt Gingrich quickly shot back that he looked forward to being president and looking after the needs of the whole American people. Today at the National Prayer Breakfast President Obama spoke of the Sermon on the Mount and how Jesus's commands to help the plight of "the least among us" motivates much of his policy thinking. Even Rush Limbaugh lectured on the sheer political stupidity of Romney's remark, of making himself a caricature of the "stereotypical rich Republican."

This follows a string of comments all hitting the same note. One was told jokingly, "I should tell my own story, I'm also unemployed!" The son of the president of an automobile manufacturer who later became governor of a state, Romney implausibly purported to have "worried about getting a pink slip" during one campaign stop. Then there was his challenge to bet Rick Perry $10,000 during a debate, a figure seemingly meant to signify a small friendly wager to him. He commented that his income from speaking fees last year was "not very much." It was $370,000, or seven times the income of the average American. He famously said he, "likes firing people" who provide services to him. He made major headlines by opposing tax hikes on corporations at one event by opining that, "Corporations are people too, my friend." He can't seem to comprehend how anyone could think his 13.9% tax rate on his largely investment-derived income was unfair compared to the 35% rate many pay on money earned actually working at a job. He has ascribed such a perspective to "envy."

While Obama was at the prayer breakfast discussing the New Testament's injunctions to serve those in pain and need, Romney, as if to underscore his plutocratic pedigree, was today in Las Vegas receiving the endorsement of none other than Donald Trump. Mr. Romney can't seem to help coming across as a "swell," a rich kid who has never had to interact with regular folks very much and has very little clue what it's like to actually be one. And that's likely because, well, that's who he really is.