Romney spokeswoman: If only laid off worker had been mandated to buy insurance!

[Lief]

http://www.businessinsider.com/romneycare-andrea-saul-mitt-romney-obamacare-bain-capital-2012-8

Mitt Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul appeared on Fox News' America's Newsroom this morning to hammer the controversial ad from a pro-Obama SuperPAC that blames Romney for the death of a steelworker's wife.

But in defending Romney, she veered way off message, explaining that if the steelworker, Joe Soptic, had lived in Massachusetts, he and his wife would have been able to get health insurance under Romney's health-care reform legislation.

Here's what she told Fox anchor Bill Hemmer, via Think Progress:

SAUL: To that point, you know, if people had been in Massachusetts under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care. There are a lot of people losing their jobs and their health care in President Obama’s economy.

Now conservatives are freaking out about it. Conservatives' main gripe with Romney all the way back to the primary season was his implementation of Obamacare on a state level and the thought that he would be an ineffective messenger on repealing the president's legislation.

Noted poorly-named crazy right-winger Erick Erickson responds:

[GM Griffin]

This is what happens when you pick a spokeswoman from my home town. Blabbering idiots.

[© Tweed the Younger]

could you stop caring about these meaningless day-to-day machinations?

[Lief]

Not while I'm at home for the summer with nothing to do, nope.

[Boris]

Not while I'm at home for the summer with nothing to do, nope.

You're probably gonna need some experience for your law degree to mean anything, although things will change irrespectively of whichever bloke lives at 1600 by 2015. Find a girl, drink a Long Island, live your life.

[stegosaurus]

Erick Erickson, and those of his predilection, are idiots. That's as far as I care to comment on this nonsense; server space is expensive.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Erick Erickson, and those of his predilection, are idiots. That's as far as I care to comment on this nonsense; server space is expensive.

You're going to ignore the fact that Romney and his team obviously think that Obamacare is a good policy and were only opposed to it to win the primary?

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Erick Erickson, and those of his predilection, are idiots. That's as far as I care to comment on this nonsense; server space is expensive.

You're going to ignore the fact that Romney and his team obviously think that Obamacare is a good policy and were only opposed to it to win the primary?

Contrary to the all the hype about "Romney running away from MA b/c of HC" Romney never actually abandoned it that I can recall, beyond saying there were some things the legislature overrode him on.

Using a false media narrative about a past event as the comparative standard to claim an inconsistency in the present, doesn't really work.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Erick Erickson, and those of his predilection, are idiots. That's as far as I care to comment on this nonsense; server space is expensive.

You're going to ignore the fact that Romney and his team obviously think that Obamacare is a good policy and were only opposed to it to win the primary?

Contrary to the all the hype about "Romney running away from MA b/c of HC" Romney never actually abandoned it that I can recall, beyond saying there were some things the legislature overrode him on.

Using a false media narrative about a past event as the comparative standard to claim an inconsistency in the present, doesn't really work.

But still a campaign member endorsed it. You can't really criticize laws on procedure by saying "we support the same laws...if they are done by the states".

[Beet]

Romney supports what benefits him politically. If health care mandates were light bulbs he'd say the weather in Massachusetts uniquely made it worthwhile to use light bulbs but kerosene lamps are superior for Texas.

[Politico]

A Romney spokeswoman, not Romney himself, made a gaffe. Big deal. Moving along...

[Lief]

Gaffe = accidentally mentioning your candidate's most significant policy achievement while governor.

[pbrower2a]

Mandated purchases of insurance, especially private, for-profit insurance with no regulation of cost, make sense only in a context of full employment or a guaranteed income. American medical coverage is more expensive than the incomes of many full-time workers in the Third World.

America has all in all the shabbiest social-safety net in the advanced industrial world.

[So the Heroes Fall]

It's never been any secret Romney has no real standing to attack Obamacare, and most in the Romney campaign probably know it (not all obviously).

[IDS Legislator Alfred F. Jones]

And there goes that spokeswoman.

[mondale84]

Worst-run major-party campaign since Goldwater.