I present the following anecdote as evidence that the media’s manufactured Romney gaffe du jour might not having the intended effect.
A middle of the road colleague at work who knows I am a political animal and that I would crawl over broken glass that’s on fire and covered in acid to vote against Barack Obama greeted me the other morning.
“Hey,’ smirking he said “Did you see what Romney said about 47% of the people?”
“Yes I did.”
“He said that 47% of the people pay no taxes.”
“Yes, he should have been a little more precise. 47% of the people pay no federal income tax.”
“What?”
“Yes. Its true. 47% of the people pay no federal income tax. Why would they vote to lower your income taxes when they don’t pay anything and get a free ride.”
“Is that true?”
“100% guaranteed. Look it up.”
“That’s crazy!”
“And when it gets to over 50% who pay no tax, there will nothing you can do to stop them. That is called tyranny my friend.”
“47% pay no federal income tax? That is crazy. I have to look into this more…”
….
Ruh roh!
September 19, 2012 at 1:09 pm
The Romney "gaffe" made the front page of our local paper this morning. Above the fold, even.
Also, thanks for the crawling-over-broken-glass-on-fire-with-acid line. It made my morning, and it's only 7:00 a.m.
September 19, 2012 at 1:53 pm
What he said was stupid. Many people who pay no taxes are hard-working middle class people who have only a slight taxable income that is cancelled out by child deductions, etc. The 47% are not all living at the public expense, and in fact a large number of them will vote for Romney — it's the rich who tend to vote for Obama! So it was dumb to say they would all vote for Obama and he didn't have to worry about them. What he should have said was, "Based on our tax structure today, slightly more than half of Americans pay ALL the income tax, and that's a problem." Because it is a problem, but what are you going to do about it without making things immeasurably worse for people who are barely getting by? It was a gaffe, yes, and Obama has made a lot worse ones. But the Republicans have to stop the class warfare NOW. They don't do it nearly as much as the Democrats, but they shouldn't do it at all.
September 19, 2012 at 6:15 pm
It was funny but slightly frustrating listening to the folks at NPR last night jump through hoops to make this more than it really is. But even the analyst they interviewed said it likely wouldn't hurt Romney much. Oh, well.
I think my "favorite" part of all this is Obama's response – how even though many people didn't vote for him in 2008, "if you want to be president you've got to work for everybody not just for some." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ha.
September 20, 2012 at 1:16 am
I prefer "crawl through Buddhism's Hell of Needles with your pants off", myself, but it's a school of rhetoric that never gets old.