Medlar on 18/9/2012 at 02:41
Inline Image:
http://image1.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2010/53/607_126694959212.jpg Inline Image:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2012/07/smiling%20mitt%20romney-cropped-proto-custom_28.jpg“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... my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives….
Another fine mess
june gloom on 18/9/2012 at 02:54
stop sockpuppeting, azaran
Medlar on 18/9/2012 at 02:58
Eh?
Yakoob on 18/9/2012 at 03:25
Romney's ridiculous faux-pas aside, there's something about the quote you mentioned that makes me think instead of just blasting him off as the usual "silly Romney whom is he insulting today?" On one hand, he actually does have a point, and on the other hand, when was the last time you saw a politician insult 47% of his voters because of ideas he believes in rather than trying to please them and make shit up just to win the highschool-esque popularity contest that is the US politics?
Scots Taffer on 18/9/2012 at 03:33
Isn't the problem that he just generalised 47% of the voting US population to being non-income-tax-paying, leeching, entitlement-having non-thinkers though (because they don't support his party's ideals)? Is that what modern politics is about?
Phatose on 18/9/2012 at 03:49
I'm pretty sure the problem is that he's made "Poor" equivalent to "Leeching, entitlement having non-thinkers who don't take responsibility for their actions." Can't say I'm surprised.
Have we actually seen any evidence that he pays any income tax?
Yakoob on 18/9/2012 at 04:27
Ah I see your point, kinda flew over my head, need to stop multitasking when browsing ttlg :p
demagogue on 18/9/2012 at 06:19
I'd say first, we're talking about a presidential campaign here, so almost none of the messaging is what a candidate actually believes. There's a whole stable of consultants and advisers putting together the campaign strategy and he just follows the script.
So this is the reality of modern US electoral politics. There are two general strategies a candidate could try to pick. Either
(1) appeal to the middle & hope to capture as much of the large bloc (some polls say ~35-40%) of independent voters as you can to get a plurality. The problem here is that their turn-out will be lower and you still have the risk your target constituency will flip on you; OR
(2) you appeal to your own base by instantly and dramatically alienating yourself to the other side, so your base turns out to the election in higher numbers, and for some close to the middle, you're more likely to lock-in their vote by alienating them to the other party.
Now this is what modern elections have learned from advertising. Strategy (1) sounds good on paper (the math looks better), but it doesn't work as good in practice as strategy (2), because Strategy 2 has the advantage of playing identity politics. You make the voter feel like "I'm one of you & I have to defend our country from them", you'll get higher turnout & much greater voter loyalty from the base. And it helps the electoral math that the whole political spectrum has lurched to the right since 2001, so now independents are thinking of themselves as Center-Right (and not true independents).
But the real punchline is that the #2 strategy has already been validated by Bush's 2004 election and the Tea Party elections, and losing in 2008 is probably interpreted as appealing too much to the center and not galvanizing the right enough. Well I read an article about it once that explained it better than I just have. But you get the gist.
Muzman on 18/9/2012 at 10:13
I was thinking that kind of thing: "this is how you play to a room full of rich assholes".
The stereotype is so strong that rich non-assholes really need to be louder at this point.
I'm still flabbergasted by US politics in general, as summed up by that other bit where someone says "What can we do to help?" and he says "You can raise me millions of dollars".
More millions of dollars.
Dear USA: I don't actually care if you hate socialism with every fibre of your being for largely bullshit ignorant reasons. It's actually OK to socialise democracy itself. It's even a good idea. Then you don't get as much of this crap.
DDL on 18/9/2012 at 10:25
And as (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romney-my-job-is-not-to-worry-about-those-people/) linked by LarryG in the other politics thread, he's talking income tax ONLY.
That "47%" includes those who pay various forms of other taxes, but who earn salaries low enough that when tax credits etc are factored in they don't contribute to federal income tax:
Quote:
Most of the households in this group don’t pay any federal income tax because they qualify for enough deductions that their income tax liability has shrunk to zero. See this Tax Policy Center report for more, which gives an example of “a couple with two children earning less than $26,400. They get an $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700, and that takes their liability to zero.”
So they're still paying into payroll taxes/medicare etc. That makes up 23% of the voter base, assuming these figures are accurate.
A further 10% are retirees: fuck those freeloading assholes, mirite?
So overall it appears to be about 8% that reasonably fit the description he's trying to pin on the 47%.
(though not sure how partizan the WP is, so take with pinch of salt etc etc)
