New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny–let’s count up the problems with this:
Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop [in Tampa, FL] on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.
“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”
He chuckled. The eight people gathered around him, who had just finished talking about strategies of finding employment in a slow-to-recover economy, joined him in laughter.
“Are you on LinkedIn?” one of the men asked.
“I’m networking,” Mr. Romney replied. “I have my sight on a particular job.”
That provided a big, soft target for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, chair of the Democratic National Committee—Los Angeles Times:
“Being unemployed, Mr. Romney, is not a joke–not to my constituents in Florida or to millions of Americans across the country,” said Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Weston and chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “Folks in my home state and across the country, who are struggling every day to make ends meet, do not need someone making light of their situation.”
Advice for presidential candidates everywhere: if you have a net worth exceeding $200 million, do not make jokes on the campaign trail about how you’re “also unemployed.” Particularly avoid doing so in a state with over 10% unemployment, but we think that $200 million net-worth individuals should probably just never say something like this, you know, ever. Your friendly audience might give you a pass, but the moment a competent reporter cross-checks the first and most obvious question here…well, “out of touch” doesn’t quite do this gaffe justice. Like the rich boss who tells employees asking for a raise that “we’re all poor at our own level,” you’re just not left with the impression that he understands how real people live–or cares to.
Which makes for a rough start to Romney’s “job search.”
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I really don’t understand the “outrage” over this. It’s like when Obama talked about campaigning in 57 states in 2008 – it was clearly a joke (delivered, like the one above, by a candidate on the campaign trail who was probably tired), but the right fringe turned the statement into a wacky conspiracy about how Obama was actually referring to 57 Islamic nations, or some such nonsense.
There will be plenty of actual discussions to have about Romney’s economic policies… making this much out of an offhand comment that you don’t find as funny as the people who were there and heard it context doesn’t add much to the political discourse.
So eight unemployed Floridians who find themselves in dire straits somehow found a way to laugh and take the joke in context. And that’s the way the Times and network TV has covered it.
But Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who makes former RNC Chairman Steele look like a genius, has an issue with it.
You’re likely right- that some leftist groups will cut, paste and edit the moment to look drastically different. But it’s hard to take you seriously when those ‘at the center of the controversy’ think it’s funny.
If the Republicans had not just jumped all over Obama for calling the last jobs report “a bump in the road.”
You either take unemployment seriously or you do not. You can’t have it both ways. Of course Mitt tries to have everything both ways.
bump in the road comment? It was a “serious” ad decrying the flippancy of Obama’s positions on unemployment while Mittens who made his fortune outsourcing American jobs is supposed to be the working mans hero.
The guy is unemployed by choice and has the scalps of thousands of American workers that show how “serious” he is about making as much person profit as possible at the expense of their jobs.
True this isn’t a blockbuster story or game changer. But it certainly doesn’t help with Mitten’s already very strongly established image as the out of touch, perfectly coiffed, kind of plastic Ken doll looking rich guy who only seems to be comfortable in expensive business wear and looks decidedly out of place in anything casual.
Agree that Wasserman has so far not demonstrated the skill set for the job but not because of this. Little digs like this are fine. Remember all the attention Gore got from snickering Rs for the whole earth tones thing? Reinforcing the mockable is never a bad idea.
Pawlenty wants to give the top 1% an average annual tax cut of “$261,000, a 14.8 percentage point drop.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/…
Out of touch? The public knows this is NOT how to put Americans back to work. When you throw in Vouchercare, Republican losses could be historic.
And get out to work to make sure it is the case!
Because he OWNS the road. (Poor unemployed Mitt…)
Sarah Palin is beating the holy hell out of her staff for not coming up with that line . . .
so I don’t know if you could say that she is in fact unemployed from her primary occupation.
Romney should have put in an application to become a cigar roller. Or to scrub tanks at the Florida Aquarium.
The illegal immigrants allegedly are abandoning the state and the farmers can’t find God-fearing homeboys to get out and pick.
when you walk on water?
he is looking pretty clumsy about drawing scrutiny to his on job creation resume. What did you expect Mittens? That nobody would notice your Wall Street plunderer background or your Gordon Gecko occupation of carving up companies?
It is like Gary Hart saying to the media to follow him and then he heads for the yacht.
He probably would have been better off complaining about the Affordable Care Act instead. Oops that has those nasty mandates in them. I’m betting he doesn’t make it to the general.
To avoid duplication, I deleted mine. This is what it said:
Having grown up a few miles outside of Detroit, I know a lot of people who have been hard hit by the recession. People who lost their jobs when their work was sent overseas. People who grew up believing if you work hard, you’ll be able to get a job. People who have advanced degrees, but still cannot find work, because there are still too few jobs to be had.
People who re-use nails when fixing their houses, so they can save a few cents the next time. People whose kids eat a lot of ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese because that’s all they can afford — when they can afford it. People who live paycheck to paycheck, surviving only by the grace of their neighbors and friends at times, who loan them money for the “extras” –extras like first-time rent deposits, school clothes, their kids senior pictures, or a new lawn mower. People who clip coupons, people who extend their meatloaf with extra cracker crumbs, people who were on unemployment so long, they no longer qualify.
People like my youngest brother who has a wife and two small kids, and is constantly on the verge of losing his house. My brother is not in the auto industry, but because everything in Michigan is dependent on the auto industry or related manufacturing, his business in home improvement is affected, as well. Having already sold the family car, he and his wife share my Dad’s old truck — a vehicle that is not at all reliable. His weekly prayer is that he and his wife and the babies never get stuck on the snowy northern rural roads for too long if it breaks down.
I worry a lot about my brother and the rest of my family and friends in Michigan — those who live in the once-great-but-now-crumbling-city, and those who live outside of it. I worry that most of them are upside down on their mortgages, and the schools their children go to now have up to 70 children in each classroom (the City of Detroit recently closed half of all of the schools). I worry for my mother who lives in a house that is too big for her to maintain and pay taxes on, but from which she can never leave because a smaller home would cost her even more.
Then there’s Mitt Romney, a guy with a neatly pressed, expensive shirt with the sleeves rolled up — a guy who probably never dug a hole in his life — who goes on television and says “I’m also unemployed”. Mitt Romney, son of the former Governor of Michigan, a man who owns several houses in several states, and is “worth” two hundred million dollars. Mitt Romney feels your pain, Michigan… and Florida… and Pennsylvania… and California. Really. He does.
Remember when you vote, Mitt Romney needs a job. Can you spare some of your change for the Mitt?
let him tlk all he wants……….Giuliani or Jeb Bush…….are lokking stronger all the time….
Obama is the heavy favorite against them all.