Romney Takes Responsibility for Misspeaking (47% Gaffe)

[Torie]

Clearly Mittens misspoke because he made a factual error. It was not just an ideological perspective. Obviously, millions of folks who don't pay income taxes will be voting for Mittens. Heck the correlation between wealth and partisan affiliation is a weak as it has ever been in the Fruited Plain - certainly in my lifetime at least, and my parents' lifetime as well.  Thank you.

[Torie]

Clearly Mittens misspoke because he made a factual error. It was not just an ideological perspective. Obviously, millions of folks who don't pay income taxes will be voting for Mittens. Heck the correlation between wealth and partisan affiliation is a weak as it has ever been in the Fruited Plain - certainly in my lifetime at least, and my parents' lifetime as well.  Thank you.

A factual error? So, in non-lawyer speak, you're claiming he was lying? Or do you think he was so misinformed to believe something that, as you point out, is wildly off target.

He just had brain lock for a moment. Have you ever said anything that just came out wrong? His larger point that the more folks there are dependent on government largess, the stronger the headwinds for a Pub, is true - at least until insolvency ensues.

[Torie]

Can the patently ridiculous piece of Newspeak that is 'misspeaking' please disappear down the memory hole, ideally yesterday?

No, because in this case it is true - Mittens misspoke. Surely Mittens knows, and knew then, that not everybody who does not pay income taxes will be voting for Obama. Now, you may think what he said was a nasty slam on those who do not pay income taxes (like retired old people and young folks in college, and those working at a low wage rate), but that is another matter, and of course what hurt him politically.

[Torie]

Can the patently ridiculous piece of Newspeak that is 'misspeaking' please disappear down the memory hole, ideally yesterday?

No, because in this case it is true - Mittens misspoke. Surely Mittens knows, and knew then, that not everybody who does not pay income taxes will be voting for Obama.

Generalizing to make a point is not 'misspeaking'.  He said what he believed, and it was largely true in the sense that yes, the vast majority of the most severely oppressed will not vote for him.

If I had to wildly guess, about 40% of those who do not pay income tax and vote, will be voting for Mittens.

[Torie]

Beet, 47% don't pay income tax. Connect the dots.

What Mittens was getting at, was those who game the government rather than sweat for a living won't vote for him really. The "gamer" percentage number is far lower of course - and some of those will be voting for Mittens too in fact who don't like Obama for whatever reason. The whole thing was a total cf.

[Torie]

No, because in this case it is true - Mittens misspoke.

No, he said something stupid - and inadvertently revealing about his worldview - which is not the same thing at all.

We just won't agree on this one Al, other than that both of us found it to be a statement as to which we don't subscribe. I don't think Mittens begrudges old folks living off their SS, etc, or as he said, helping those who are physically unable to work, and so on.

Just who needs more tough love out there is probably an area where our Venn diagrams are not co-extensive, and just possibly don't intersect at all outside the plutocrat cohort, but that is off topic.

[Torie]

than sweat for a living

Mitt Romney never did that.

 Nope, and neither did you I suspect, nor I, nor Obama for that matter.

Are you impishly suggesting Mittens is a gamer?  That opens up a whole new field - mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the biggest gamer of them all?

[Torie]

About 47% do not pay net income tax, and about 47% in polls are non-swing votes in favor of Obama. Romney conflated the two.

Surely his mind is more supple than that. You have made the biggest slam on Mittens yet.  Only a Biden type could really think in such silly erroneous simplistic terms.

Nice and pithy and well phrased post by the way.

[Torie]

Clearly Mittens misspoke because he made a factual error. It was not just an ideological perspective. Obviously, millions of folks who don't pay income taxes will be voting for Mittens. Heck the correlation between wealth and partisan affiliation is a weak as it has ever been in the Fruited Plain - certainly in my lifetime at least, and my parents' lifetime as well.  Thank you.

A factual error? So, in non-lawyer speak, you're claiming he was lying? Or do you think he was so misinformed to believe something that, as you point out, is wildly off target.

He just had brain lock for a moment. Have you ever said anything that just came out wrong? His larger point that the more folks there are dependent on government largess, the stronger the headwinds for a Pub, is true - at least until insolvency ensues.

Everybody is dependent on the government, in some form or another. "Rugged individualism" is a myth that has largely been manufactured in recent decade to justify redistributing wealth from the working and middle classes to the rich and powerful. And besides, there are tons of lower or middle class people (most of them white) who have taken full advantage of government assistance, yet vote Republican because they don't want "Other" people to get the same benefits that they themselves enjoy.

I actually largely agree with this, although the way I would phrase the reverse Robin Hood thing, is that the rich and the powerful and those in neighborhoods adjacent are the biggest welfare queens of them all. That includes myself. I have probably received more government largess vis a vis the pension plan laws, the tax code past when you could write off real estate depreciation against ordinary income, the farm subsidies, the housing rehabilitation subsidies, Prop 13, and on and on, than the rest of you combined I suspect. Thank heavens there are not too many of them/us!