Oops:
A well-publicized weekend photo-op for Mitt Romney turns out to have been missing a piece of information that might have undermined its credibility: the unemployed single mom at the center of the event was the mother of a Romney staffer.
Local and national media outlets, including Politico.com, reported that Romney was the picture of empathy as he sat at the Marshall, Mich. kitchen table of 51-year-old Elizabeth Sachs, a single mother of two who lost her job as a retail manager – as well as her health insurance – and is running out of money as she tries to sell her house to move to Florida.
What wasn’t reported – and what the Romney campaign did not reveal at the time – was that one of Sachs’ sons, Steve Sachs, is a paid employee of Romney’s campaign, organizing five counties in Michigan.
I tried to call the Romney Campaign HQ to get Hugh Hewitt’s response, but he was unavailable. The WS branch office, headed by Dean Barnett, did have an op-ed fluffing Romney in the NY Times, though, and it featured this gem:
I hope Mr. Romney does well enough in Michigan today that he gets the opportunity to introduce the public to the real Mitt Romney. He is a wonderful and gifted guy. It would be nice if he and his campaign allowed the voters in on that secret.
Erick at Red State makes the following prediction:
I predict that, not only will he relaunch his campaign, but it’ll be themed as “unleashing the real Mitt Romney.” There’ll be a purge of consultants, etc. I take this as anticipating my prediction.
Betcha he is right.
*** Update ***
From the comments, someone asks if this is the same Elizabeth Sachs?
She says it’s a clear sign from God. That sign came in the form of a potato.
Marshall resident Elizabeth Sachs says she was making a twice baked potato for her son on April 4th. When she sliced the potato low and behold a figure of a cross inside.
Sachs does not believe this was a random message.
She says she was fired from her job and remains unemployed. She’s had to give up her dream home because she can no longer afford it.
Anyone know?
Chris
Must be hard for Romney to move around without tripping over Hewitt and Barnett fighting with each other over who gets to play Monica.
myiq2xu
Is there anything real about the Mittster? Or is just a computer generated image like Max Headroom?
Tsulagi
Sort of reminds of that FEMA press conference where the “reporters” asking the questions were FEMA staffers. Let no stone be unturned in getting out the big picture.
Assrocket, you got competition. It really takes a Jack Bauer patriot warrior to show just how to go dildo-up for their guy.
Jen
Doesn’t anyone else think it’s weird that Assrocket, Hewitt, and KOS all want the same thing? If I were a winger, I’d feel kind of like I would if Rove started trying to sell us on Obama…
Dennis - SGMM
Mitt Romney 2.0 folks! The guys in Software Development must have worked their fingers to the bone.
Dreggas
Well you could ask that crew if his penis is real considering they can’t seem to get it out of their mouths.
Elvis Elvisberg
I’m sorry, but I don’t see this as a huge deal.
Yeah, it’s not great, if the Romney campaign concealed this.
But if her story’s real… what’s the big deal? Was she presented as some sort of independent voter?
Also, this post is the first I’d heard of this photo op. Maybe it was all over the MSM the past few days, and maybe there is a reason why this is really bad. But I don’t see it.
4tehlulz
I doubt that. The real Mitt is an incomptent buffoon.
Punchy
Uh…hmmm….so what we’ve seen up to this point is a FAKE Mitt Romney? (yes, of course…but they’re admitting it??)
WTF?
gypsy howell
I’m curious (but not curious enough to go wading around RedState to find out for myself) — who do they think the “real” Mitt Romney is, and how is he different from the Faux Romney we’ve apparently been seeing all this time?
Dreggas
Real Mitt Romney™ comes with special underwear and the ability to fight terrorists with his power tan and full head-o-hair as well as the ability to skull fuck real kittens. Fake Mitt Romney™ is an action figure who can only pretend to do these things.
gypsy howell
I was under the impression that what we’re looking at today — the Faux Romney by their accounts — IS the 2.0 release; the 1.0 release and its updates being Massachusetts Liberal Mitt. So perhaps they’re working on Mitt XP upgrades or, god help us, Mitt Vista?
Svensker
Count me as someone else who doesn’t see this as a big deal, much as I dislike Romney and loathe the Repubs at this point. If they were pretending she had problems but didn’t and was a staffer’s mom, that would be one thing. But her problems certainly seem real and real worldly. Where’s the beef?
The Other Steve
I suspect if Romney were President, he’d be a weak President and constantly having to pander to the Republican base. So if you want more war mongering, more gay bashing, more abortion pandering… vote Romney.
In other words… more Bush.
Actually pretty much the entire Republican field is like that. Except for Huckabee. He’d be different. Not sure if that’s a good different, but he’s willing to tell much of the Republican party to go fuck themselves.
Dreggas
I don’t know, are those tables made of Oak or particle board? We have to check her counter-tops. She is dressed way too well to be a single mother, how do we know she is even a mother someone check for stretch marks!
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Little known fact: Papa George did that, one day, back in 1955. The preteen hopped the fence in the back yard, and nobody ever found him again.
George had him replaced with a simulacrum.
The Other Steve
Her great grandfather was Samuel Sachs, her son goes to private school paid for by the Sachs fortune, and she’s got a granite countertop?
Dennis - SGMM
More like Mitt ME or Mitt OS2 Warp.
/geekiness
Dreggas
TOS Says:
No, he’d be worse…far, far worse…
lutton
The weird thing is that who her kid is isn’t that big a deal…if they had just come out and said it.
Her kid working for Mitt doesn’t make the economy as a whole any different, nor her being laid off and losing her insurance.
Someone organizing a few counties isn’t some grand poobah in the campaign and it doesn’t make mom’s story any less compelling.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I kind of like how, in the picture, the woman looks like she’s being taken over by some unseen Romney-esque aura, which is forcing her to smile at inhuman magnitudes.
Jen
Yeah, it doesn’t really strike me as scandalous or unethical, just profoundly lame. I mean, there isn’t a struggling single mom anywhere in Michigan who supports Romney but isn’t related to a campaign staffer he could have found?
Next, a press conference to announce that all five of his sons and his wife endorse him, too! (I guess he’s saving that for when it’s down to him vs. Giuliani.)
gypsy howell
Apparently not. Res ipsa loquitur.
Dreggas
Jihad Rehab
Pb
Is that this Elizabeth Sachs?
myiq2xu
Didn’t the GOP get mad cuz an alleged HRC supporter dared to ask a question at a GOP debate?
IOKIYAR
Zifnab
hehe. Beat me to it.
Basically, yes. His entire constituency consists of used-car dealers, media marketing consultants, and elderly (occationally deceased) billionaires. Fortunately for Mitt, there are a shit ton of used car dealers in Michigan.
Dennis - SGMM
Mike Huckabee’s statement to a Michigan audience yesterday, linked above by Dreggas;
Those words make Mitt’s Mormonism look mild. They make McCain look like a secular humanist. Fortunately, Giuliani still looks like a fascist douchebag.
Jake
Caidence gets PotD.
And yeah, compared with all of the other crap Mitt has said this doesn’t count. The fact that she is an unemployed mom may be the peak of Republican honesty this year.
But his fucking posture drives me crazy. Sit UP you slob.
myiq2xu
The Mittster better step up his game if he wants to be President.
Remember the actor dressed as a fireman that stood next to G-Dub at Ground Zero? The “Commander Codpiece” pictures that were set up? The emergency lights at NOLA that were brought to backdrop G-Dub’s speech, not to help locate survivors?
And if you’re gonna bring in a fake “single mom,” why not get a hottie with big hooters?
Jen
I’m gonna go with, Mitt doesn’t want to be upstaged.
You probably won’t see Obama out with Obama Girl either. Sorry, myiq.
ThymeZone
Romney looks really good to me.
Next to Giuliani, Hucksterbee, and McPain, pretty much anyone could look good, no?
Out of that bunch, only McPain strikes me as being even close to somebody that could actually carry out the duties of the job he seeks. And, he wants a 100 year Iraq occupation, which would just about be his age at the end of his second term.
Good Christ.
Dennis - SGMM
When someone is right, doggonit, they’re right. All candidates should immediately surround themselves with both male and female hotties. That way, while they’re promising all of the shit that they’ll never quite deliver we’ll at least have some good visuals.
I truly believe that in 2012 the Dems will still be running on Health Care and getting us out of Iraq while the Repubs will still be running against same. Both will be promising to lower the unemployment rate below seven percent and resurrect the economy.
gypsy howell
Oh dear sweet Jeebus on a popsicle stick! From Pb’s link above — She lost her job because she found potato jesus!
The link has an actual photo of her Jesus-Criminy-Christ-in-a-Tater.
OMFG. I’m not going to stop laughing all day. Bless you, Pb, for this miraculous find!
RSA
Has anyone yet linked to The GOP Primary Field in Buffy Villains (via Yglesias)? If so, sorry. But it’s brilliant. Mitt as The Mayor, by the way.
Delia
I think the Real Mitt reference point is Portrait of Dorian Grey. Somewhere in a locked drawer in the Romney family mansion is a magic Ken doll that gets another ugly slash or burn mark across its stiff, smiling plastic body every time Mitt panders or changes his position one more time. Eventually it will become a little blackened pile of plastic goo and the Mitt we see will implode.
That’s the Real Mitt.
Bombadil
I nominate this quote to be the caption for the picture at the top of the thread.
Dreggas
here’s the rub, slice a baked potato in half and a cross like shape tends to appear. Basically the moron lost her job for being a moron.
Dreggas
Dreggas
oh yeah, fixed.
Jen
Well, if they’re two people, then they’re both mothers named Elizabeth Sachs in Marshall, Michigan, who lost their jobs.
This is funny, from Gene Weingarten. Here is his toast:
And here is the explanation.
Behold the embedded links.
John Cole
I don’t think she lost her job because of the potato.
Punchy
Better question–is her maiden name “Goldman”? If so, she’s not hurting for money.
myiq2xu
Maybe it was the Mr. Potato Head in the Oval office.
Jake
True. I don’t think that photo is of the actual miraculous spud.
I also don’t see a link between job loss and sanity loss. But I’m sure The War Against Christmas crowd would unleash a stunning barrage of post hack ergo proctor hack reasoning to prove I’m wrong and hate the Baby Jesus.
And this may the real reason Mittens picked this particular mom.
gypsy howell
I confess that in my gales of laughter, I may have misconstrued the story slightly on first reading.
It doesn’t exactly say she lost her job BECAUSE of Tater Jesus. It’s possible that Tater Jesus appeared to her AFTER she lost her job. Or that she lost her job for reasons entirely OTHER than Tater Jesus. (I think we can all drum up scenarios in our minds why someone who believes she has found Tater Jesus and advertises it to the news media *might* be found lacking the proper job skills in a managerial position, which conceivably could require a modicum of reality-based thinking.)
Mr. Potatohead
I think we need to launch a full scale investigation of this woman, she baked a poor defenseless spud not once but TWICE then proceded to cut it open and found the image of a cross? This is tubercide of the first order! We must act in all haste lest more spuds suffer such a fate.
myiq2xu
Well, this doesn’t beat Zifnab’s “Jeebus in the Anus” link from last week.
Mike
Mormonism is mild. They may have some loony-sounding theology, but in the real world it amounts to “The most important thing to me is my family.”
Dreggas
Let us pray
Our tater, who art in Idaho
Russet be thy name.
Thy Harvest time come, thy mound be done
In the earth, as it is in Boise.
Give us this day our daily starch
and forgive us our french frying
as we forgive those who french fry us
And lead us not into boiling
but deliver us from mashing
for thine is the sour cream
and chives forever Amen.
gypsy howell
Does this make Baby Jesus a Tater Tot?
Andrew
Well, that and God’s direct revelations + schizophrenia = multiple homicide.
Dennis - SGMM
As long as it isn’t a dic-tater I’m okay with it.
Face
It’s been my experience that people who see Jesus in a baked potato dont make the best coworkers.
Bombadil
Yep. These are John’s readers.
myiq2xu
Are you implying that John is a “Spud-Muffin?”
Dennis - SGMM
Now, which right-wing blog will pick up on the Tater Tot comment and use it as proof that we hate God, religion, and America in general?
Dreggas
Yeah but that ain’t a golden aura around him, it’s the sheen from the hot lamp on his freshly fried, greasy self.
Zifnab
He baked for your s(k)ins.
Davebo
Elizabeth Sachs was fired from her job.
Why was she fired? Has Michelle done a drive by yet?
And how do we know she can’t afford her dream house? Has anyone audited her?
And finally, campaign organizers handling five counties don’t make much money at all. Why doesn’t her son go out and get a real job so he can help out his poor Mom?
Oh, and the countertops. We can’t forget about the countertops…
Jen
It’s off the topic, and this is a good one, but you should check out the video of Bush on Letterman up at Sadly, No. It’s short.
ThymeZone
Heh. It’s fun to watch em when you put the melted Velveeta all over Jesus’ countenance.
Jake
Mrs. Sachs is not the only Republican to receive unusual comfort from root vegetables.
Jamey
For all the talk about John Edwards’s $50 kajillion haircuts, is anyone willing to wager that Mitt spends more on his looks in a day than Edwards spends in a year?
Dreggas
To save us from roasting.
Punchy
If you told me yesterday that a woman had recieved pleasure from a potato, seeing Jesus in it would not have been my first thought.
Gus
Dog butt Jesus is the only real Jesus.
Dreggas
POTD!
Tsulagi
So if a chihuahua with some off-colored hair on its forehead in the shape of a cross comes up and humps her leg, afterwards does she light up a cigarette?
Grand Moff Texan
Marshall resident Elizabeth Sachs says she was making a twice baked potato for her son on April 4th. When she sliced the potato low and behold a figure of a cross inside.
Funny, every time I slice an apple crosswise, I get a pentagram.
.
gypsy howell
Well there it is. How much more proof do you need that God is sending us messages through our food?
Pentagrams in an apple? Cripes, how much clearer does it GET?
cleek
the potatoes scream when i cut them. so i don’t cut them anymore.
Darkness
Oh, excellent pic. I love it. Christianity as the rotting fungus at the core of yummy carbohydrate goodness.
The Other Steve
Shh. you’re not supposed to let that out of the bag until the general election.
maxbaer (not the original)
Now that the Great Orange Satan has swung Michigan for Mitt, do think South Carolina for Fred and Florida for Rudy would make things interesting enough in the Repub Convention?
The Other Steve
What scenario would be the most embarassing for Rudy?
I’m thinking Rudy getting the nomination myself.
Delia
You have to cook them in the microwave first. You don’t hear them screaming over the microwave noise, and they’re dead by the time they come out, so you can do anything you want to them and they won’t say a thing.
Evilbeard
Hey Pb, you got props over at Crooks and Liars!