Whelp, that's it for Mittens

Well he was right that those people were worthless and should be exterminated via death panel.

So who are these massive number of freeloaders who don't pay taxes? Mostly elderly people subsisting on Social Security...many who vote Republican. Poor folks who receive the Earned Income Credit and many of them vote Republican, too.

Romney is conflating those people with those who live on seek every entitlement they can get their hands on to make the numbers sound much larger than they are.

Oh, there definitely are leeches in society...but it isn't 47%. Probably not even close.

I haven't watched the video, just seen coverage of the remarks. So I don't know the full context.

But I imagine in context Mitt's remarks are a fairly loud dog whistle to other people who are leeches who automatically are going to vote for Obama, who are government-dependent and entitled.

Now, I would imagine that if I'm an elderly person who lives on Social Security and do not pay taxes, the thought may not cross my mind that I would fall into the category "leech."

This is hardly a game-changer.

Yep.The only people who care about this is the people who weren't voting for Romney to begin with.

HOLY SHIT! I guess this means actormike has decided he isn't going to vote for Romney! And none of the other "Mother Jones" readership is either.

This is the fundamental problem the GOP has had for at least 5 years: They are trying to get people who like Obama to like them. What does it accomplish? Has anyone ever said "I really like Obama, but since this other guy says a lot of the same things Obama say, I'll vote for him instead"? It is stupid to try to appeal to voters who want Obama. If they want to vote for Obama, they'll vote for Obama. All it accomplishes is that the people that don't want to vote for Obama won't vote for you.

In an number of ways:

1. 22% of the "don't pay no taxes" crew are elderly folks on Social Security.

2. 19% more (I believe) are students or other similarly situated people who are not drawing any dole payments, but simply not making a full time income sufficent to pay income taxes.

3. many people pay a great deal in other taxes while not paying INCOME taxes, often while not recieving any sort of direct transfer payments.

4. a great many of those receiving some payments while not paying income taxes, in any given year, are unemployed people who'd like very fucking much to BE working and, even if the "leech" term were to be pedantically applied, is not one they would fucking appreciate at the ballot box. To say nothing of having paid taxes for unemployment benefits (in that they had their just compensation paid in by their employer) so they are, at least for 26 weeks, drawing their own money in the same sense that SS is "getting your money back"

5. As a simple political calculus, it is a VAST error - of almost incalculable proportions - to assume that EVERY person who receives any sort of transfer payment (a) feels obliged to vote to preserve it; (b) if of the opinion that republicans are indeed a threat to it; and (c) are willing to vote for Obama even if they are. A considerable number of people getting such payments and/or assistance are, as far as how they vote, committed conservatives who would never ever support Obama. Might not show intellectual consistancy, but it certainly happens.

6. It further presumes that virtually NONE of the 53% will vote for Obama. Notice how he describes it as if Obama has the 47% in hand. Done. Over. Not "in play" at all. If that were in fact true, then he might as well strap the dog to the car and head home now because you CANNOT EVER defeat him. the premise that Romney has to thus nail 51 out of ever 53 votes in play to win is so ludicrous that it defies description.

Even if it's just lies you tell your doners, a guy who professes to have made his fortune - and thus be able to save us all - because he understands numbers says THAT?




It's staggeringly wrong.

while at the same time (in another clip) basically admitting he dare not say anything else but "I'm not Obama"

I wonder if they are perhaps double counting somewhere. In very general terms, if you can get ANYTHING you can get SNAP. It's hard for me to believe that there are MORE people getting something that legitimately qualifies as "welfare" who are NOT on SNAP than there are who are on it.

If 45 million are on SNAP, then I would hypothesize the number of people on "welfare" of any sort (assuming you don't count Social Security and Medicare) would probably be a lot closer to something in the 50-60 million range. I'd be interested to see if the 107 figure was adjusted so as not to double count the person who was, for instance, getting both SNAP and Medicaid.

I posted a thread about this here, you ignoramous. Income taxes are not the only tax and in fact they only make up ~47% of total Federal taxes and only about 23% of the total government taxes people pay on average. So you're ignoring 77% of the total taxes people actually pay when you claim the income tax, which was originally only supposed to hit the top 2% of earners, is the only tax.

The hard truth is EVERYONE pays taxes in America. Everyone.

I don't think the GOP has been trying to get people who like Obama to like them at all. Or at least, if they have, they have been using a bizarre strategy. Calling Obama a Muslim radical Christian socialist who wants to make everyone dependent on government, who really probably was born in Kenya, who palled around with terrorists, eats arugala and criticizing basically every thing he does is not a sane person's attempt to "get people who like Obama to like them."

I can't think of too many things that any GOP candidate has said on the other side of "I love America, apple pie and babies" that would fall into the category of "saying the same things Obama says."

That said, it seems that it's probably true that 47 percent of the electorate is a lock for Obama, and 47 percent is locked for Romney. The questions is where the remaining voters are going to come down and how those locks are distributed across the country.

Regardless of the truthiness of Romney's statement, I really don't think this is going to make a difference in the election one way or the other.

D/Rones don't care what their guy says. Only what the other guy says.

Die hard Dems will be outraged by this and Repubs will ignore it or justify it to themselves in some way.

It's frustrating, more than anything. A candidate could eat a baby on live television, and there would a double digit voting block who would find some way to justify it. It's people who are so desperate to be right, and to win at all costs, they're willing to ignore entirely any negative aspect of the candidate in question.

The really funny thing is Muad has become such a die hard supporter of income tax is the only tax when the income tax was originally created to pay for the war caused by his retarded secesh rebels which he idolizes. It was also originally designed to only hit the extremely wealthy; the top 2% of earners.

I don't think it's a big deal at all. We already knew Romney had disdain for half the electorate. The Republican strategy is definitively not geared toward representing all Americans. Nothing to see here.

I find this thread very amusing and very instructive.

The OP reeks of desperation and wishful thinking. But actually, very few people agree with it. Only the totally partisan are hoping with all their hearts that this means the election is over and Obama has won. Those who favor Obama but are more reasonable about it, however, realize that it is hardly a game-changer.

Sure, the remark is arrogant, factually incorrect, silly, and shows Romney's contempt for nearly half the electorate. But if something like that was all it took to make sure a candidate lost, then we would be putting up with President McCain right now, after Obama's equally arrogant, silly and contemptuous remark about "clinging to guns and religion."

The bottom line has been pointed out by quite a few posters on both sides of the political divide: Most people aren't going to be swayed by something like that. Those who favor a candidate (even if it's only because of the letter after his name on the ballot) will find a way to justify it or, at the very least, minimize its importance. And those who are opposed to him will of course think it's just awful. But then, they think almost everything about the other candidate is just awful.

IOW: The thread title is ridiculous wishful thinking. If Romney ever had a chance (which is not all that likely, IMO), he still does. And if he didn't, then it makes no difference.

Saw a chart which showed where the bulk of the 47% lived. Of the 10 states which held the largest proportion of them, 9 were in the Southeast and solidly red states.

I do not think Romney's statements will change his poll numbers, however, it just gives everyone something to be butthurt about, and will be forgotten the moment some celebrity has a tittyflop or snatchflash photo hit the web.

Forced to agree.
Real life isn't like that part in "a face in the crowd", where the cameras are turned on while Lonesome Rhodes calls his audience bumpkins, and his ratings crash.

Obviously these comments were not intended for a general audience, but for GOP donors who already subscribe to these ideas. It’s hardly anything new from Romney and his camp.

The details may water down the point, but I don’t think the general idea is without merit. People dependent on government aid—regardless of how they or others may feel about the morality of their situation—are more likely to vote for Obama.

It is, however, quite cynical and against his interests to assume that none of those people will vote for him.

Where's the baby's birth certificate? How do we know it wasn't a secret Muslim Kenyan baby that he was eating?? He might have just eaten the next Osama bin Laden.

"I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do." -- Mitt Romney

Leaked by the Romney campaign like a motherfucker.

Hey, look fiscally conservative base! I'm really one of you! *wink* *wink*

If the Romney campaign leaked this deliberately to win over conservatives, they probably should have factored how this might play more broadly.

Even some conservatives think this video is damaging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=2

Another video leak of Romney blasting the two-state Israel/Palestine solution has hit the news.

Now all we need is a leaked video of him declaring machine guns ought to be freely available and we got ourselves a triple threat.

By itself this is not a game changer. (To me that would be defined as something that shift people from one solid camp to the other) However as part of an overall narrative it's certainly not a positive. If someone is genuinely open-minded and trying to decide who has their best interests at heart, well, what's the proportion of the undecided who fall into the 47 versus the 53?

b
DTecumseh qtr sheets are with Shirley at the library.

This is what happens when the GOP and their supporters wrap temselves up in a cacophony of right leaning news and media. They begin to believe their own brand of bullshit. I'm not shocked or surprised at any of this... only at how shocked the general public seems to be that this is how conservatives view the rest of America.

I'll say this to just illustrate how short sighted Romney's view is. Every year for the last 5-6 years, I've had to sit down on April 15th and write a 5 figure check to the IRS in order to pay my family's share of taxes. It pisses me off each year.... My family and I are Democrats and have been most of our lives. Romney and the GOP are fools if they believe that some of those 47% who pay no taxes are not GOP supporters. Until they figure out why that is so and not just think that they know, then I don't expect them to do any better in national elections.

That's going on my twitter feed!! :rotflmao: