Drip, drip, drip. With 49 days to go until the election, Mitt Romney can’t seem to get out of damage-control mode. The GOP nominee is now trying to explain away comments he made at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in May in which he wrote off 47 percent of the population as entitled victims who don’t pay taxes and are “dependent on government.” His remarks were captured on a surreptitiously recorded videotape that was published this week in Mother Jones.
Romney now says his comments were not “elegantly stated,” and he insists he was just trying to call attention to the divide between the Democrats’ government-centered outlook and his faith in free enterprise and personal responsibility. But even conservatives aren’t buying.
William Kristol called Romney’s comments “arrogant and stupid.” And David Brooks mocked them in a column title “Thurston Howell Romney,” referring to the out-of-touch millionaire marooned on Gilligan’s Island. Which may be where the Romney campaign is headed, metaphorically speaking, if they don’t right the ship soon.
