Republican US presidential candidate Mitt Romney dismissed supporters of US President Barack Obama — almost half of US voters — as people who live off government handouts and do not “care for their lives,” in a potentially damaging video.
The video, taken secretly at a fund-raising event for the former private-equity executive, was the latest setback for his campaign, which is struggling with low poll numbers and reports of infighting.
Romney hastily called a news conference in Costa Mesa, California, to respond to the video. He said his comments were not well stated, but he did not back away from them.
Photo: AFP
The video was shot with a hidden camera as Romney spoke to potential donors at a private event earlier this year. It was posted online on Monday by the liberal magazine Mother Jones.
“There are 47 percent who are with him [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them,” Romney is heard saying on the video.
He also said the 47 percent did not pay taxes. The video gave the Obama campaign a chance to return to a popular theme — that the multi-millionaire Romney is an out-of-touch elitist.
“It’s not elegantly stated. Let me put it that way,” Romney said in response.
“I’m sure I could state it more clearly and in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that,” he told the news conference in California.
However, Romney stuck by his video-taped remarks, saying it was a message that he would continue to carry in the run-up to the Nov. 6 presidential election.
“Frankly, my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them and therefore I’m not likely to draw them into my campaign as those in the middle,” Romney said. “This is really more about the political process of winning the election and of course I want to help all Americans have a bright and prosperous future and I’m convinced that the president’s approach has not done that and will not do that.”
The video added to Romney’s problems as he tried to retool his campaign message with more specifics on policies after reports of internal disarray.
He has slipped in polls in the past two weeks as the selection of running mate Paul Ryan and the Republican National Convention failed to make much of a mark with voters.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey on Monday taken over the previous four days showed Romney — often painted by rivals as an out-of-touch elitist — trailing Obama by 5 percentage points.
In the new video, Romney said he did not need to concern himself with Obama supporters.
“My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents,” he said to potential donors.
The tape brought back memories of controversial remarks that then-Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama made at a fundraiser during his 2008 campaign, when he said that white rural voters “cling to guns or religion.”
On Monday, the Obama campaign tried to take advantage of Romney’s comments.
“It’s shocking that a candidate for president of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.
“It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation,” he said.
Romney’s campaign said the Republican is concerned about Americans who are poor and unemployed. “Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy,” Gail Gitcho, Romney’s campaign communications director, said in a statement issued in response to a request for comment.
Mother Jones did not say when or where the video was taken to protect the identity of the person who recorded it. It did say Romney’s remarks had been made at some point after he clinched the Republican presidential nomination in April.
In the video, the former Massachusetts governor accused Obama supporters of paying no income taxes.
“These are people who pay no income tax,” he said. “Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.”
Romney has been criticized for not releasing more than two years’ worth of tax returns.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing
RSS