On a morning when Mitt Romney should be celebrating his big win yesterday’s Florida primary, his campaign is instead trying spin remarks he made in an interview CNN’s Soledad O’Brien:
I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there. If it needs repair I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they are doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who are struggling.
Ouch, talk about squandering your victory lap.
Even taken in context Gov. Romney’s remarks are cringe inducing, his reasoning plays directly into the Democratic Party’s ‘Republicans don’t care about the poor’ narrative. Not that the context even matters, the only thing people are to take away from that interview, the only thing people are going to remember is Mitt Romney saying “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”
The campaign ads practically write themselves.
Frankly, Jonah Goldberg is right:
“… the under-emphasized dynamic in this race isn’t that Romney isn’t conservative enough (though that’s obviously a real concern out there) it’s that he’s simply not a good enough politician. He may be the most electable on paper. He’s certainly a nice guy, decent father, smart, successful etc. But, every time he seems to get into his groove and pull away he says things that make people think he doesn’t know how to play the game.”
And that more than anything else is why I think he’s the wrong candidate, for all his strengths, he has the uncanny ability to look and sound like a frighteningly bad caricature of a disconnected, elitist country club Republican.
Overall, this gaffe probably isn’t fatal, but it’s worrisome — make no mistake this gaffe is going to come back haunt him. This is still Romney’s campaign to lose, he’s going to have to sharpen his focus and make sure he doesn’t fall into the class-warfare trap. This election is about the economy, the focus should be on fixing the economy so that everyone benefits not pitting one group of Americans against another, the way Barack Obama has.