Romney's "gifts" remark ignores his own fatal flaw

This article originally appeared on RealClearPolitics.

On a chilly late-January afternoon in 2008, Mitt Romney was engaged in yet another day of around-the-clock campaigning when he posed for a photo with a group of young African-Americans at a Martin Luther King Day parade in Jacksonville, Fla.

It was my fifth month on the trail with Romney as an embedded campaign reporter for CBS News but the first time I had seen him at an event attended by more than a few minorities.

In all likelihood, not many of those at the MLK parade voted for Romney in the Florida primary the following week, but he was nonetheless greeted warmly by just about everyone he encountered.

The teenagers with whom the former Massachusetts governor posed seemed particularly excited to meet a famous person, as one young woman cheered and draped her arm around the candidate.

"Who's got your camera though?" Romney asked as he scanned the crowd, looking for someone to snap the shot.

There was a brief pause, and then he bellowed:

"Who let the dogs out? Who?! Who?!"

The shirt-and-tie-clad candidate's outburst referenced an eight-year-old song from a one-hit wonder; it had once so saturated the airwaves that a poll conducted the previous month by Rolling Stone magazine ranked it the third most annoying song of all time.

A few of the kids in the crowd giggled nervously at Romney's non sequitur before the candidate told them, "Thanks, guys," and moved along.

A few minutes later, a baby was hoisted up for the most standard of campaign trail rituals: politician-meets-infant photo op. But Romney took the moment to make yet another outdated, and perhaps even more cringe-worthy, reference to urban pop culture.

"Hey, buddy, how you doing? What's happening?" Romney said to the African-American child. "You've got some bling-bling there, too!"

In the countless hours I spent in Romney's presence during his first White House run (and mostly from a greater distance during his second bid), I saw a man who was preternaturally upbeat, well-meaning, and kind to just about everyone he encountered, friends and strangers alike.

But I also saw a candidate who seemed by nature almost uniquely ill-equipped to appeal to the young and minority voters who ended up playing a key role in his electoral demise.

Members of the press who traveled with Romney in 2007 and early 2008 began slowly to pick up on what would become an established media narrative by the time Romney was the 2012 front-runner: The former Massachusetts governor didn't just have a difficult time relating to young and minority voters, he often came across as a walking-talking time warp from the 1950s.

On the stump, Romney frequently began declarative sentences with the word "why," and talked about how long he'd been "going steady" with his high school "sweetheart." And that persona seemed well enough suited to Republican primary electorates, which were disproportionately white and older.

The mostly gray-haired members of his crowds in Iowa, after all, were usually receptive when Romney told of a cross-country trip that took him, as a teenager, through the Hawkeye State; he said he'd noticed that the soil was particularly fertile, prompting him to say to himself at the time, "God must love Iowa."

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[rksharma-2009]

Everyone knows including republicans that Romney lost because he thinks this way. It was obvious during the campaign as well as after his defeat. He believes that money needs to be in hands of few, who need to be treated as masters and the rest should pray to the God to one day bring them up to this level. He was promoting policies to make it harder for the middle class to stay in the middle class and close door on the poor for good. This is why he lost. Now republican party is trying to put a new face to this, however, they continue to believe in the same policies that Romney was advocating. I know that republicans are saying all kinds of things to make Romney look bad and force him to go away, however, republicans are still involved in obstruction and promoting policies that favor the rich. If they are serious, then they will pass the tax bill to lower taxes for 98% that has already been passed in the senate, and then negotiate the rest. Don't hold this bill as hostage, just because you have different agenda.

[tvwatcher5345]

was it a gift to people like sheldon adelson when people like newt gingrich said that the palestinians are a made up people? i sure as hell don't think the neocons are made up and i think we need to get them out of the US government and send the neocons (senor, feith, wurmsers, kristol, krauthammer, kagan, etc over as an invasion force into iran

[VICTORYDEM]

Romney's gift to America was exiting stage right on Nov 6th...

[zenia5]

This guy is unbelievable! Members of his own party are scrambling to distance themselves from him. Romney just doesn't seem to know how to be REAL.

[cydygitt2]

"You don't start to like people by insulting them and saying their votes were bought. We are an aspirational party," he said. Jindal said the Republican Party needs to convince voters it is the party of the middle class and upward mobility. Its conservative principles "are good for every single voter" and it "has to campaign for every single vote," he added. "We also don't need to be saying stupid things," Jindal said.

---


Yes booby, it's not only the stupid things that republican say, or even those divisive things that help drive voters away, but your polarizing party needs to understand that you have to propose economic principles that indeed help the middle class -- not just the wealthiest Americans!

[cntrygirl3]

Mr. Romney's sour grapes on losing are embarrassing to himself and especially to the republican party. "Gee if I could have given them gifts I could have been elected." totally misses the point. He did the unforgivable and believed his own propaganda. George Romney would be deeply ashamed of his son. Mr. Romney should take his defeat like a man instead of the sniveling whiny bully he apparently really is.

[Jepp5]

was in the mid-80s when I was teaching high school in a small South Dakota town that I first heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio. I was surprised at the hate coming out of his mouth, most of it directed at me! Okay, not me personally, but at teachers and teacher's unions. Up until that moment in time I had been a Democrat who split his ballot so much that some elections I actually voted for more Republicans than Democrats. Since that day I have only very, very rarely marked a name on the Republican side of the ballot.

In a nutshell, this is one of the biggest problems with today's GOP: They run "against" more than they run "for." They are against teachers and unions, the are against gays, they are against minorities (remember Willie Horton?), they are against scientists ...And then Romney makes his infamous statement where he comes out against 47% of Americans!

Hey, GOPers! You can't keep running against everyone! The more people in this country you alienate the more and more difficult winning on the national stage is going to become. You've lost 4 of the last 6 presidential elections and, in fact, you've lost the popular vote in 5 of the last 6! Figure it out!

[diddy_back_again]

Jepp5, put down the Saul Alinsky book and stop with the Marxist rederick. You must be a fan of the very sensitive Bill Maher. You're miserable and your life must be in financial ruin. Cheer up big guy. Do you need a hug? Did you drop your nuk? Your president is a Marxist and believes in the redistribution of wealth.

[makeinu]

@Diddy,

First, it's rhetoric, not rederick (which isn't even a real word).

Second, if you bothered to read a book yourself, you might actually learn what Marxism is, and then you might not sound so ignorant.

[cydygitt2]

LOL! Talk about "gifts".......

There are serious economists who study the difference between what our states pay in taxes and how much they get in return from the U.S. government.

The numbers, for decades now, have been quite clear: With some exceptions, what we regard as RED states are sent a whole lot more of your hard-earned tax dollars than the traditional blue states. In effect, supposedly indolent, "tax and spend" liberals actually subsidize the individualistic, pure, and "hard-working" lifestyle of our conservative countrymen.


The results will stun many people, though not me: I've been telling my Tea Party relatives this for years. Here's a list of the top 10 states that got the most back in terms of federal benefits:


1. New Mexico ---- Indian reservations, military bases, federal research labs, farm subsidies, retirement programs

2. Mississippi ---- Farm subsidies, military spending, nutrition and anti-poverty aid, retirement programs.

3. Alaska ---- Per capita No 1 recipient of federal benefits; infrastructure projects, DOT and pork projects.

4. Louisiana ---- Disaster relief, farm subsidies, anti-poverty and nutrition aid, military spending.

5. W. Virginia ---- Farm subsidies, anti-poverty and nutrition aid.

6. N. Dakota ---- Farm subsidies, energy subsidies, retirement and anti-poverty programs, Indian reservations.

7. Alabama ---- Retirement programs, anti-poverty and nutrition aid, federal space/military spending, farm subsidies.

8. S. Dakota ---- Retirement programs, nutrition aid, farm subsidies, military spending, Indian reservations.

9. Virginia ---- Civil service pensions, military spending, veterans benefits, retirement, anti-poverty aid.

10. Kentucky ---- Retirement programs, nutritional and anti-poverty aid, farm subsidies.


From the non-partisan Tax Foundation

[mark648]

First, the Tax Foundation is about as non-partisan as the DNC. Secondly, Civil Service, Military Pensions, and veteran's benefits are not federal benefits, but compensation for service performed.

[cydygitt2]

LOL! Nice try markey, but benefits are benefits, and it doesn't matter whether they are for farm subsidies or veteran subsidies, they still come from the federal government, through taxpayers from the BLUE states to the welfare RED states! Face FACTS for once!

[marychgo]

I'm not sure what Scott Conroy thinks was Romney's "fatal flaw," but it seems to me the reason he couldn't get a majority of American voters to vote for him was that he (and his Spoiled Fratboy running mate and their fellow Republicans) made it so VERY clear that he/they have utter contempt for most of their fellow Americans. We get more than enough of that from (some of ) our employers and (some of) our neighbors and (some of) the posters here: we DEFINITELY don't need that contempt from our President!
Makers vs. takers, "job creators" vs. "moochers," women who want "free birth control," "self-deportation," "corporations are people," "urban" voters, plus the unending spate of LIES from Romney and his SuperPAC and all the billionaire SuperPacs and 501(c)s like the Chamber of Commerce: the entire message of the Romney/Ryan campaign was "Rich people count and you don't!" Is ANYONE surprised that wasn't a winning message?

[diddy_back_again]

Hey, your Marxist president got some SuperPAC money too. Now go and finish destroying the country...you bother me.

[marychgo]

Sorry, Diddy, but most of the contributors to the Obama SuperPAC were simply multi-millionaires; only the Spoiled Fratboy ticket had billionaires contributing millions to support them!

[GM525]

Defense spending, Medicare & Social Security = 60% of the federal budget. We know that older Americans are the primary beneficiaries of The latter 2 and voted overwhelmingly for Romney. We can assume that Romney won the majority of votes from those who benefitted from Defense spending. Throw in another $129 billion in veterans benefits, another voting block who voted for Romney. This is around 70% of the federal budget that went towards programs etc. that support the Republican voting block. Once again, Romney's math simply does not add up. Talk about buying votes!