If
Mother Jones is secretly running Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, the strategy of the last 24 hours seems to be: Day One) Insult and write-off half nearly of all Americans. Day Two) Denigrate and write-off all Palestinians in the world.
On Tuesday, Mother Jones released additional segments of secretly-filmed video footage of Romney speaking at a private fundraising dinner for wealthy donors earlier this year. Segments released on Monday revealed what Romney thinks of those who would vote for Obama:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax.
The video, filmed by an anonymous individual who then gave the footage to Mother Jones, is creating jaw-dropping responses across the political world and generating new headaches for a campaign that has struggled recently to find its footing following its national convention in Tampa last month.
Segments released on Tuesday show Romney answering questions about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and prospects for a peaceful settlement. As David Corn--who wrote the story for Mother Jones--points out, Romney speaks of "the Palestinians" as a homogenous people--"a united bloc of one mindset"--when he tells the crowd: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."
Following the release of the first batch of videos, the Romney campaign responded with a hastily assembled press conference. Romney did not dispute the authenticity of the video, and though he expressed regret for the quality of the comments, did not back away from their content. "It's not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I was speaking off the cuff in response to a question. And I'm sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that," Romney said.
During the press conference, Romney requested for Mother Jones to release the whole video so that it could be better evaluated. In response, Mother Jones reporter Adam Serwer tweeted:
How much more, or how much damage the videos will do to Romney's presidential apsirations, is not yet clear.
The video segments follow (all text from Mother Jones):
Here is Romney expressing his disdain for Americans who back the president:
Asked why he wouldn't go full-throttle and assail Obama as corrupt, Romney explained the internal thinking of his campaign and revealed that he and his aides, in response to focus-group studies conducted by his consultants, were hesitant to hammer the president too hard out of fear of alienating independents who voted for Obama in 2008:
To assure the donors that he and his campaign knew what they were doing, Romney boasted about the consultants he had retained, emphasizing that several had worked for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
When one donor said he was disappointed that Romney wasn't attacking Obama with sufficient intellectual firepower, Romney groused that the campaign trail was no place for high-minded and detail-oriented arguments:
Romney, who spoke confidently throughout the event and seemed quite at ease with the well-heeled group, insisted that his election in and of itself would lead to economic growth and that the markets would react favorably if his chances seemed good in the fall:
Romney spoke of "the Palestinians" as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."
Romney spoke of "the Palestinians" as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."
Talking to these funders, Romney also demonstrated that his campaign-long efforts to criticize Obama's handling of foreign policy in simplistic and exaggerated terms--he's an appeaser, he's an apologist--are not reserved for public consumption. Romney told these well-to-do backers that the president is a naif with an oversized ego:
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