In Netflix documentary "Mitt," Romney essentially admits that he too is a "taker."

This all comes from the Washington Examiner article concerning the new documentary.

Get a load of this exchange: 

As he spoke, Romney held the notes he had made during the debate (candidates are not allowed to bring any notes with them to the stage, but are allowed to make them during the debate). Romney pointed out that in every debate he began by writing "Dad" at the top of the paper. 

"That's what I start with: 'Dad,'" Romney explained. "I always think about Dad and about I am standing on his shoulders. I would not be there, there's no way I would be able to be running for president, if Dad hadn't done what Dad did. He's the real deal …" 

"You're the real deal," said one of Romney's sons. 

Romney didn't pause. "The guy was born in Mexico. He didn't have a college degree. He became head of a car company and became a governor. It would have never entered my mind to be in politics, how can you go from his beginning to think, I can be head of a car company, I can run for governor, I can run for president?" 

Romney wasn't finished. "The gap — for me, I started where he ended up. I started off with money and education, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School. For me it's moving that far" — Romney held two fingers close together — "for him, it's like that," Romney said, holding his arms wide apart.

I found that to be a VERY telling exchange, and one that came right after the first Presidential debate that many believed that Romney had won decisively.

Not only was Romney admitting that without the leg up provided by his wealthy father he would not be running, he was also admitting that he did not think he could beat the President in a second debate: 


"Sitting presidents have a very hard time in these debates," Romney told the family. "They feel like, who is this whippersnapper coming up here who knows nothing? And so they don't prepare, and they just think they can waltz through it. Then they get crushed in the first debate, and then they come back."

Of course Romney proved that he was correct in that assumption, and President Obama crushed him in the second debate and essentially sealed the deal as to who would win the election. 

However going back to the remarks at the beginning of this post, it seems to indicate that Romney understood that much of his success, if not all of it, was due to the accomplishments of his father.

This of course helps to explain gaffes like suggesting that 47% of Americans are takers and would never vote for a Republican, and that all young people have to do is ask their parents for tuition in order to attend college.

It also illustrates that Romney himself should be identified as a "taker," as he was somebody who not only allowed his father to pay for his education, and get him his first jobs, but also used his name in order to open doors and find donors when he decided to run for office.

What Romney, and many others who come from wealthy families, fail to understand is that THEY are the most egregious "takers" of all.

Without the benefits of a wealthy father, the best education that money can buy, and the influence of his father, Mitt Romney might well have ended up as the manager of a local Office Max instead of the most recently defeated Republican candidate for president.

Yet he, and others in the GOP, become indignant at the idea that those who come from more modest means might need a government that gives them a hand with their education, or helps pay the bills when they are unemployed, or subsidizes child care so that they can work.

It is this lack of compassion that turns many of us off when it comes to Republican politics, and it had much to do with why we are not today hearing what a President Romney has to say on this MLK holiday.

Ed Schultz interview of Scott Prouty, the man who filmed the 47% video and derailed Mitt Romney's campaign.

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I was absolutely riveted to this thing last night, and essentially planned my entire evening around watching it.

My first takeaway is how humble Mr. Prouty is and that he really seemed to be motivated by nothing more than the desire to reveal the truth about a candidate that he felt was lying to the American people.

My second takeaway is that we need to hold a parade in this man's honor.

George Will on Mitt Romney: "You have a political problem when the voters don't like you, but you've got a REAL problem when the voters think you don't like them."

Okay so here you have George Will, Bobby Jindal, and Newt Gingrich piling on Mitt Romney for not presenting the "right message" to the voters.

What was it Newt said? "If we can't offer a better future, that is believable, to more people, we're not going to win."

In my opinion that is what the Republican party is struggling with, how to present themselves as more palatable to the American people. But the problem is that what the voters heard, that turned them off so much, was NOT a poorly packaged message.  What they heard, that turned them off so much, was the unvarnished truth.

When Mitt Romney was caught on hidden camera saying that 47% of the American people would not vote for him because they were essentially people who wanted handouts, THAT was not a poorly worded stump speech, that was a conversation with a group of like minded supporters who thought EXACTLY the same way.

When Todd Akin suggested that if a woman were the victim of "legitimate rape" that she had "ways of shutting that whole thing down" to prevent pregnancy, he was in NO WAY hesitant in making that claim. It was clearly something that he firmly believed, and that he had undoubtedly repeated numerous times around like minded individuals.

And to that point when Georgia Rep. Paul Brown claimed that science was "lies straight from the pit of Hell," he said it with the religious fervor of a man who has heard and believed those words, undoubtedly delivered from the pulpit, virtually his entire life.

These Republicans were not guilty of saying something stupid that upset their constituents and drove away voters, they are were guilty of breaking the Republican 11th Commandment, "Never Tell the Truth."

As the GOP struggles to reinvent themselves, they are really struggling to think up more attractive and digestible lies to cover for their REAL agenda. And trust me, at least when it comes to their base, they KNOW their audience.

This from The American Prospect:

Clearly, the only explanation for all this delusion is that conservative media and campaign consultants, steeped in years of confidently lying about everything from global warming to the causes of the deficit, got a little too bold about their ability to create their own realities. The only question is whether conservatives will learn their lesson and exhibit more skepticism about their self-selected news media in the future. 

The answer is almost surely no, for a very good reason: Conservative credulousness is so baked into the culture of the right that it could well be considered a defining feature. This has been true for as long as movement conservatism as we know it has existed, and there’s no real reason to think conservatives are going to sharpen up about this now.

Have you ever wondered how somebody who was caught in as many lies as Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan, could STILL manage to pull in 47% of the vote? Simple, because lying is really of little to no consequence to the base of the Republican party. In fact they seem to prefer it, and even respect those that are good at it.

Kind of explains why, for a brief time at least, Sarah Palin was so incredibly popular doesn't it?

It seems that the only real problem faced by the GOP is the allergic reaction to bullshit demonstrated by the Independents and Democrats. You know the people who think rather than believe, who depend on logic rather than faith, and who investigate rather than digest.

So really, it is ANY wonder that they are constantly attacking the public school system? If everybody were just as open to being lied to as the Republican voters, these guys could rule like kings!

Paul Ryan shows up uninvited to soup kitchen and washes clean dishes for photo-op. WTF?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall.

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University. 

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.” 

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.” 

Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned. 

Upon entering the soup kitchen, Ryan, his wife and three young children greeted and thanked several volunteers, then donned white aprons and offered to clean some dishes. Photographers snapped photos and TV cameras shot footage of Ryan and his family washing pots and pans that did not appear to be dirty.

So let's get this straight.

In an attempt to fight the image that the Romney/Ryan ticket does not care about 47% of the population, Ryan pushed his way into a soup kitchen after all of the hard work was over, and had his picture taken washing already cleaned dishes.

Oh yeah THAT ought to help their credibility!

P.S. Here is video of the photo op. You can clearly see that the kitchen is spotless and Ryan simply says "I'm going to get them wet, and you're going to dry them" to his son.

EPIC FAIL!

Mitt Romney just hanging with the 47%.

"OMGD! Look how white these Mormons are!"

This is a picture of Mitt the Twit visiting a Chipotle Mexican Grill.

I think this calls for a caption contest don't you?

Obama campaign ad uses Mitt Romney's words against him to devastating effect. Update!

I saw this ad on Meet the Press this morning and was blown away by how powerful, and potentially damaging to the Romney campaign, it was.

The new attack against the President by the Romney campaign is that he is a liar. That of course is projection on their part and in NO way supported by the evidence.

All of that of course makes me wonder how the Republicans will deal with this ad, which does nothing but use Romney's own unedited words against him. Let's watch how quickly they abandon the truth to defend their candidate.

Update: Here is another version featuring Bruno Mars.

Ezra Klein explains exactly WHY Mitt Romney's comments about the "47%" makes him essentially ineligible to be the President of this country.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

The worst of Romney’s now-infamous comments about “the 47 percent” came in this couplet: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” 

Put aside the tin-eared term “those people.” When he said this, Romney didn’t just write off half the country behind closed doors. He also confirmed the worst suspicions about who he is: an entitled rich guy with no understanding of how people who aren’t rich actually live. 

The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier, that give you time and space to focus on what you want to focus on. 

That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream. 

The problem is living the dream has blinded him to other people’s reality. His comments evince no understanding of how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, how awful it is to choose between skipping a day on a job you can’t afford to lose and letting your sick child fend for herself. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

Wow!  That is beautifully put.

And that is pretty much it. Romney has NO idea what is like to be a person who requires support from the government or help from their community. He is a wealthy man, who came from a wealthy family, and who is surround by wealthy peers.

Unless he is running for office he has no use for us, and obviously WE have no use for him.