I know summayall are tired of reading about this Romney video (Cole covered it here, and DougJ hit the subject here), but if you’ll indulge me, here are my thoughts on why it matters — or might matter.
In my view, the fact that Mitt Romney thinks that Obama supporters are government dependent freeloaders may not hurt him that much with the right. Folks on the right, even those who are on public assistance, don’t see themselves as the quintessential government teat sucker. Only those people (or Ann Romney’s “you people”) use government assistance.
And if a Romney supporter did once have to use public assistance, it was because he or she was going through a rough patch. Not like those people with their Cadillacs and their Xboxes and their blackity blackness.
But attending a fundraiser held by a private equity guy — Marc Leder — who is known for throwing sex parties in the Hamptons? A guy who hold throws week-long parties in St. Bart?
And let’s not forget that last month, Mitt Romney held a campaign event at a convicted cocaine trafficker’s juice shop in Miami. Errrybody knows that a proper sex party requires a mountain of cocaine.
Oh, and he also held a campaign meeting at a strip club back in June.
Donde family values, Señor Mormon?
[via Mother Jones; image via Gus at Little Green Footballs]
[cross-posted-ish at ABLC]
Comrade Luke
Please, PLEASE post the photo that’s currently on the NYTimes front page so we can do a caption contest.
Alison
@Comrade Luke: Bwahaha omg. I love them for posting that.
Alison
Also too, the sex party thing – I mean, wev, get on with your bad selves, but talk about hypocritical bullshit: these are people who act like two gays who want a nice pretty wedding and a house with a picket fence and two cute little kidlets and a doggie and a minivan are DISGUSTING PERVERTS WHO SHOULD BE ASHAMED AND SHOULD HIDE THEIR GAYNESS AWAY FROM SOCIETY FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE OMG. But you know, coke-fueled orgies = family hour.
DPS
I think it’s right that the moocher stuff is not going to hurt him much if at all, for the reason ABL articulates. What undecided voter is going to think “hey, I’m one of those moochers he’s talking about! That settles it, I’m voting Obama.”
Unfortunately I’m also not confident that his rich friends’ parties will rub off on him (so to speak). Nobody is ever going to think that Willard has any connection to hookers and blow.
Spaghetti Lee
Mitt Romney doesn’t need cocaine. He’s insufferable enough as it is.
Chris
You wield understatement like Zeus his thunderbolts.
It’ll help him with the right, and I suspect it already has (look at all the comments people have brought back). Those people love bullies, thugs and elitists. I’ve thought for a long time that one of the reasons they couldn’t warm up to Romney was that he didn’t get personal and abusive enough.
Of course, the right isn’t the majority of the country, and I don’t think it’ll play well with the rest. But the righties are coming to it like pigs to slop. This was a meme on their blogs and chat rooms long before Romney latched onto it. It’s as close as he’ll ever get to making them believe he’s one of them.
AA+ Bonds
I am honestly glad Leder is becoming part of the story . . . I’ve met him, true story, he has those dead doll eyes
That’s a thing in finance, it’s like that jackass poker player who wears the cat-eye shades
AA+ Bonds
I am honestly glad Leder is becoming part of the story . . . I’ve met him, true story, he has those dead doll eyes that are such a Thing in finance
AA+ Bonds
I also understand him to be one of those guys who pretty much divorced his kids along with his wife
Hill Dweller
@DPS:If the Obama campaign is smart, and I think they are, they’ll explain who is in the 47% and tell them that Willard doesn’t think they’re responsible.
The ads write themselves. Single working mothers, elderly, students, and the recently unemployed are all going to be in the 47%. Just record their stories, and end it with them saying ‘I am responsible’.
chris
ABL, you apparently have forgotten that IOKIYAR.
Also, IOKIYARWG. (Rich white guy.)
There won’t be much traction on the partying story, and his base will desert him only because he’s sure to lose and they don’t want his stench all over them. What he really did here was expose the Republican id for everyone to see… and people don’t like it. I think this story will long be remembered as a huge seismic shift in the electorate’s views of the two parties.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
Nope. We’ve never won on their sexual hyper racy behavior. Shouldn’t ever give the press the opportunity to talk about sex instead of issues, or that is all they’ll talk about.
Redshift
I think the sex angle will provide the story with some extra juice for the Village, but I doubt it will have much impact on the “family values” crowd. The nobility are never bound by the norms that ordinary mortals are required to follow. Yeah, a few wingers may stay home in disgust, but I expect he’ll lose more from the perception that he’s doomed than from failing to be pure enough.
However, I do think all of it will be poison to the “middle eight or ten percent” that Romney needs to win.
Calouste
@Hill Dweller:
Apparently soldiers deployed in combat don’t get taxed either. Oopsy.
Hill Dweller
@chris: We’ll see. Leder has bankrupted a shitload of companies recently, but still made money on the deals. He’s also accused of intentionally bankrupting companies to avoid paying the employees’ pensions.
Willard, at another shady Wall Street guy’s house, demonstrated to the world his disdain for The Help. If played right, the Obama campaign can hurt Willard badly using these remarks.
GregB
Like a ghost from the past. George W. Bush speaks the truth about the rich people like Mitt and taxes.
Fox News 2/11/2008
BUSH: Because there’s two big issues. One is, who’s going to keep your taxes low? Most Americans feel overtaxed and I promise you the Democrat party is going to field a candidate who says I’m going to raise your tax.
If they’re going to say, oh, we’re only going to tax the rich people, but most people in America understand that the rich people hire good accountants and figure out how not to necessarily pay all the taxes and the middle class gets stuck.
Jewish Steel
@Comrade Luke: God, yes.
I forgive you, NYT, for all the bullshit you spew. Just for one evening, you are my hero.
Villago Delenda Est
ABL, you forget that the talibangicals worship Mammon.
They’ll look the other way at all the sexual dalliances of Mammon’s vicars on Earth.
OTOH, they hate the blah more than fucking anything, to include hippies and sluts. Only the ghey come close in the hate parade.
Well, MAYBE the Muslims, but they’re all brown anyway, so close enough.
Spaghetti Lee
@Jewish Steel:
OK, am I missing something? All I’m seeing is Romney in front of a pretty boring podium. Do I get a different NYT online than all of you?
Hill Dweller
Leder’s sex parties could be the sugar that attracts the press, but his shady business deals have more potential to hurt Willard. He, like Willard, is another plutocrat that got rich destroying the working class people to enrich himself. Birds of a feather…
Alison
@Spaghetti Lee: Well, it’s the hands up in the air, mid-shrug, like he’s just WTF-ing at us. I don’t know, I find it rather amusing.
DPS
@Hill Dweller:
Yeah, I am just not seeing the people in the 47% who are persuadable undecided Romney votes thinking “I’m one of the people he’s shitting on”; they’ll think “Mitt is talking about those young bucks and their t-bone steaks, I’m glad I’m not one of them.” Practically everybody thinks they’re in the 53% because they pay taxes, even if they’re not federal income taxes. And I don’t see Obama commercials explaining to low information white voters “hey, you’re not as independent as you think you are” being a real winner.
mdblanche
Reminder to all Romney campaign staff: the last seat in Collapsible Lifeboat C is reserved for your boss.
ABL
@Alison: it’s reminiscent of “I am not a crook.”
Jewish Steel
@Spaghetti Lee: To me it’s a totally exasperated, “What do you people want from me?” shot.
DPS
@DPS:
That said, if there’s anybody who can turn something that shouldn’t have hurt him into a total clusterfuck, it’s Willard, master of stepping on his own dick.
AA+ Bonds
@DPS:
Actually no one except right-wing bloggers and their billionaire incubi think in terms of the “53%” or the “47%”, that was a total flop of an anti-“we are the 99%” line floated by Erick Erickson and RedState and it was perfect code for Romney to show the Randians he’s serious but it’s like some sort of creepy dark tongue to the rest of America
Y’all are not online muck tourists I know and so you may have missed the endless posts mere months ago of paste-hued libertarians holding up “I am the 53%” messages scribbled on notepaper, under the glow of their fluorescent dorm lights, but Google them, this was a Thing
It failed, of course, because libertarians understand zip about marketing and messaging outside of their moldy circles and totally didn’t get why “we are the 99%” worked so well as a slogan – 53% doesn’t roll off the tongue, it sounds divisive instead of inclusive and isn’t even a number that anyone can goddamn remember
Plus, fetishistic attachments to weirdly dull and precise percentages like 47 and 53 come across to the uninitiated like delusions of reference, like the sort of numbers an in-home patient would give you on the proportion of Hollywood celebrities who are actually Andromedan lizard men
Triassic Sands
Hey, Mitt, you stupid twit, raise the minimum wage to $150/hr and a lot of those people who don’t currently pay federal income tax will start paying.
But our economy depends on having a large workforce of low wage workers — who help the true parasites, like Romney, get rich; no wait, that’s right, I almost forgot, Republicans are all totally self-made wunderkinder who have never gotten any help from anyone to do anything. That’s why Republican entrepreneurs always travel to work on roads they build themselves. (I guess that explains why they are often late to meetings — building a road takes time.) Why, here in Washington State, I frequently see Republicans swimming across Puget Sound rather than take the state-operated ferry. They don’t need or accept help…period.
When Steve Jobs got cancer, do you think he went to a doctor who worked for a medical facility that had received financial or research support in the past from the government? Nonsense! He simply invented the iCure, a miraculous treatment for cancer whose effectiveness can be seen by observing Jobs’s current superb health.
The truth is Romney wants it both ways. He wants a multitude of low wage workers who couldn’t possibly survive if they had to pay income tax on top of all their other expenses and who can double as perpetual whipping boys for being free-loading, lazy leeches sucking the very life out of the virtuous people like Mitt.
I can think of no more powerful evidence that people don’t get what they deserve than Mitt Romney. If a truly horrible human being like Mitt got what he deserved, he’d spend the rest of eternity, beginning yesterday, being tortured in Hell. Unfortunately, for the cause of justice, there is no Hell, and people often don’t get what they deserve. Life is not fair — Exhibit A is Romney.
Alison
@ABL: OMG totally.
Jewish Steel
Chait:
I like a lot of what Jonathan Chait writes. He hits more good notes than bad ones. That being said, despite the way he postures himself, I’ve always suspected that he was kind of a villager chump. Now I’ve got my proof.
AA+ Bonds
@DPS:
I think that man straight got his dick sucked by other men
Overlay his French poolboy with the sort of shit I know to be the case in how people move up in New York finance, the Galaxy of Beards, twinkling with psychopathic do-anything red dwarves – add in his homophobic physical assaults on classmates he perceived as gay – I have met people like him before, there is always a line of guys who have given that guy a little on the side, back through college if not before
Villago Delenda Est
@Triassic Sands:
Just this.
@Jewish Steel:
Yup, “What do you people want from me?” seems to be exactly what he’s thinking.
Well, for starters, motherfucker, the last 10 years of your tax returns.
Jewish Steel
@Villago Delenda Est: Or a shred of humanity. I don’t think we’ll be seeing either.
Hill Dweller
@DPS: The key is Willard calling those people irresponsible. They’re getting that 47% figure from ’09, just after plutocrats like Romney destroyed the economy. Are the people laid off through no fault of their own irresponsible? Are the elderly irresponsible? Are students irresponsible? Are single, working mothers irresponsible? Are soldiers fighting in a war zone irresponsible?
If the Obama campaign can put a face on the 47%, tell their stories/circumstances, and explain that Willard has disdain for them(the average American), it could be devastating.
Nevertheless, these private remarks exposed Willard. The Village can’t say he is really a moderate any longer. Even David Brooks is hitting Willard hard. Kessler has already called his 47% claim bullshit. These are reliable Republican apologists.
I think a lot of the media are tired of covering for Willard. Yes, the Village is full of sociopathic careerists, but they’ve been getting killed for the constant false equivalence for a long time. The attack on the diplomats in Egypt and these most recent remarks have given them all an excuse to stop carrying Willard’s water, and I think some are going to take advantage of the chance.
DPS
@AA+ Bonds:
No, sorry, I wasn’t clear. I remember the “we are the 53%” thing; I’m not talking about that, or suggesting that anyone will think that slogan to themselves.
My point is that when Romney says 47% of the country are freeloaders nobody who isn’t already going to vote for Obama will think “Hey! That fucker is talking about me!” What they’ll think is “Hey! At least I’m not one of those freeloaders he’s talking about!” So I just don’t see how what he said moves votes. The only people who would be offended are already voting for Obama.
Geoduck
@Hill Dweller:
And it’s important to repeat again, nobody likes Mitt Romney. The Villagers liked McCain, and were willing to provide cover. Romney’s lost that.
DPS
@Hill Dweller:
Well, my unemployment check is what I earned. These other people collecting unemployment checks are just feeding at the government trough. I admire your confidence in low information undecided voters to see their own situation in the situation of other people. I’m not sure I share it.
I think they’re rats taking this opportunity to leave a sinking ship. That people needed to get off was clear before this happened—hence the ass-covering leaks from the campaign that had already started—but it don’t think it’s a cause, just a pretext. Or maybe they’re not understanding that this didn’t need to be a big deal. Hell, Mitt doesn’t seem to have understood that he could have ridden this out; he looked terrified at his press conference about it.
Maybe. Mainly I think they want to be on the “Mitt is doomed” bandwagon before he loses. At any rate, if they do propagate a “Mitt is a fuck-up and a loser” narrative, that is actually something that I think would turn off low information undecideds. So even if nobody changes their vote because of the content of his remarks, maybe the video will still indirectly work to Mitt’s disadvantage, and that’d be OK by me.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I just placed an order with Zazzle. A bumper sticker saying “I’M A PROUD MEMBER OF THE 47%”. I ordered a dozen because I know people will want them here in Santa Fe.
Nancy Irving
Certain people may not like to believe they are among the moochers, but they should know that NO WAY does R-Money get to that 47 percent figure without including the 56 million Americans on Social Security. NO WAY. And we should be pointing this out to them, over and over and over…
greennotGreen
I don’t understand the significance of the photograph accompanying this post. Isn’t it just a pic from the set of “CSI:Miami”?
AA+ Bonds
@DPS:
Wrong, it is a lot simpler than that: the 53% / 47% rhetoric just makes him come across as a weirdo; people don’t even want to think about other people saying the shit he’s saying in that video because it’s hateful and kind of crazy-sounding
Your average low-info fence-sitter is just going to think about what a dick he is
I should have been more concise
AA+ Bonds
I think the Republicans are right that the media hates Mitt Romney, for the same reason that a lot of professionals hate Mitt Romney: he represents the sort of people who buy the company you work for and fire you and replace you with videos of a dog that does flips or whatever, and everyone in the press is TERRIFIED about that happening
It’s pretty healthy IMO and will maybe help the American press regain the skeptical misanthropy the news media need to function properly as the Fifth Estate
? Martin
I think Leder will play a minor role in all of this.
The risk to Mitt with this video is that it potentially shifts him from ‘politician pandering for campaign money’ to ‘Donald Trump with better hair’. All of these fundraisers – Leder, the Cayman flagged yacht, etc. are going to look upon closer inspection like Masters of the Universe meet to discuss how to divide the spoils. Pundits understand pandering for campaign money and they’ll forgive that as a necessary evil of the process and generally not even report on it much because there’s no story there anyone cares about. But this – this they’re going to dig in because they can spin an ugly narrative out of it.
hells littlest angel
We may be surprised at just how many people in the last week have had to admit to themselves that Mitt Romney is simply a shit-head. The returns on 11/6 will tell the tale.
AA+ Bonds
@hells littlest angel:
It’s like none of these born-again skeptics in the press ever had the chance to talk to anyone in Massachusetts, or read any of the articles about his campaigns there. Mitt Romney will say anything to anyone if his handlers tell him it’ll help his numbers. Hell, wasn’t that where the rest of America came in, back at the beginning of all this?
Patricia Kayden
@Geoduck: I agree with that. Any votes for him will be anti-Obama and not pro-Romney. Paul Ryan must regret accepting the VP spot in this campaign.
Todd
St Bart’s rocks. I’ve been there, can’t afford it, but it rocks.
Gogiggs
I dunno, maybe this isn’t the time to be fair about things, but I looked up the Leder story and all it said was he threw an expensive party, where at some point, a couple people started swimming nude, then having sex. That’s not what I think of when I think of a “sex party”. Hell, I’ve been at lots of parties where somebody got naked and a decent number where people ended up getting busy without ensuring complete privacy. Hell, when I was a young man, a party where nobody got laid hardly counted as a party at all.
Anyway, I have no hopes that this will hurt. As we’ve seen again and again and again, there just isn’t a price to be paid for hetero transgressions of “family values”, if you’re a Republican. Mitt himself could do it and all he’d have to do to be forgiven is squeeze out a few tears, acknowledge he was wrong and ask forgiveness. Consequences are for Democrats like Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, not god-fearing Republicans like David Vitter.
aimai
@Gogiggs:
It was in the New York post and it specified the ethnicity of some of the beautiful women walking around: Russian. I assume that was code for “prostitute” and Russian Mafia connection. Money laundering is a huge part of what is going on with the uber rich and the big banks. I think as people start digging deeper on the sex angle another thing that is going to shock and surprise the village media is how overtly corrupt the wealthiest in this country are. They are not some fantasy version of Calvinist New England Republicans all diligently working at being Moderates. Certainly Mitt and his Porn-Selling Marriott comperes aren’t.
aimai
Milagros Garcia
Marc leder is well known hre in Fla, we always knew that he what he is capable of. However at that meeting were several wealthy CUBANS and that really makes me think
The Other Bob
Imani is right. Few on the right will look in the mirror are admit they are one of the 47% who don’t pay INCOME taxes, or have been on some sort of government assistance. It is always someone else. Shoot, even Rmoney is one of the 47%er’s in years when all his income comes from capital gains.
Now it is up to Obama to capitalize on it. I might say Obama’s campaign should point out that retirees make up a large part of that 47%.
JCT
@The Other Bob:
Yes, perhaps when he is in FL. “Romney says you are a moocher now, but he is going to help you move up in life and stop sponging off the govt. His plan is called VoucherCare.”
What a despicable person Mitt Romney.
DGarr
Mr. Romney finally speaks from the heart.
He will dismiss 47% of Americans as beneath his consideration. He will be the President of the 53% (or whatever percentage of the population votes for him.)
This was no gaffe.
A gaffe is when one misspeaks.
This was not a mistake.
Mr. Romney was telling it as he believed.
For the first time, we hear a man speaking confidently, eloquently, because he is saying what he believes.
Who knew. We had thought he was just a candidate uncomfortable with oratory. No, he was a man who was hiding what he really believed and unable to do it artfully.
Yes, Mr. Romney has finally told the truth.
And that is the problem.
Goodbye, Mr. Romney.
Go away.
Go to your multiple homes, or to Switzerland or to the Caymans or wherever else you can be with your millions (or is it billions?)
Go away and don’t come back.
Please.
Brachiator
@DPS:
I don’t know. Medicare, Social Security, makes you a moocher as far as Mitt is concerned.
And here is an easy debate question: Governor Romney, do you want to repeal the GI Bill, strip away the child care credit, the child tax credit, mortgage deductions, charitable deductions and every other credit that ordinary taxpayers use to lawfully reduce their tax liability?
Do you really want to eliminate all federally guaranteed student loans for young people going to college?
Yes or no?
Do you really think that the millions of Americans who are able to retire on Social Security or depend on Medicare and Medicaid are moochers?
Yes or no?
Do you really believe that a laid off worker struggling to get by with the help of unemployment compensation is really a moocher?
Yes or no?
Spatula
I just want to know how one gets on the list for these sex parties?
mclaren
Tired? Bring it on! Let’s spray more info about these depraved wackos who support Romney out into the blogosphere far and wide. Let’s carpet-bomb the uptight fanatically repressed Republican evangelical base with all these lurid pics of Leder doing scenes from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The 120 Days of Sodom in his beachfront mansion, that’s my attitude.
Ram this crazy lurid reality down the Republican base’s throat until they choke on it. Peel off those fanatically prudish Republcan voters one by one. Make ’em so violently ill at what Romney’s supporters are doing that they can’t bring themselves to yank that lever on the first Tuesday in November.
mclaren
@Spatula:
Net worth of 100 million and up.
Just Some Fuckhead
And lots of poppers, if we’re including the Republican Taliban.