Kishkumen wrote:Whatever Romney actually thinks, his statement was, in itself, problematic and inaccurate. He is the one who must bear the blame for saying what he said. Blaming everyone else for "misinterpreting" Romney is lame.
I agree that his statement was a disaster, and I won't be surprised if he loses the election because of it. But stranger things have happened...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jABut to me, he is saying that a message of governmental austerity and tax breaks will have no effect on a large portion of the population when it comes to votes. He can't worry about their votes. He isn't saying he doesn't care about their situation, or their struggles. He is just acknowledging that there is a huge portion of the population that will not be receptive to his message, and he isn't going to be spending energy or money trying to convince them otherwise.
It's like the observation in baseball, where there's a 160 game season. Teams know that everyone is going to win 60 games and lose 60 games, and the difference is what happens with the 40 games in the middle.
If Obama decided to make abortion rights the key issue of his campaign, he might make the observation that there is X% of people who irrevocably disagree with him on the issue, and his job isn't to worry about those people, but to focus on the people whose votes he can get. It's just a matter of defining what the selling points of the campaign are, and which people will be receptive to those points.
As far as Romney's comments go, people tend to get very, very focused on the things that directly benefit them, even when it goes against what they might believe in principal. So if someone is getting support from the government, that can have a very powerful effect on how they view government's role in peoples' lives.
For example, a few years ago my wife and I finally bought a house, and we just happened to qualify for the home buyer's "tax credit". The government wanted to give us $8,000 for buying a home. This was a terrible, terrible idea, and I was opposed to the program. But did I cash the check? You bet I did (I even joked about it in my Christmas Card that year). So I know how the prospect of getting money from the government can change how people see the world.
Now that was just a one-time thing. But what if I was faced with voting decisions that I thought might affect how much I can get from the government on a monthly or yearly basis? Would I have the courage to vote against my own self-interest if it were for the good of the country as a whole?