Not Concerned

Mitt Romney says he's "not concerned about the very poor". I wonder how many times we'll be reminded of that between now and November.

To be fair, here's the actual context of that remark on CNN today:

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling and I'll continue to take that message across the nation."

So the point he was trying to make was that people at either end of the income distribution are doing OK, but there's a huge number in between who need Mitt's help. Fair enough. Let's not take one sentence out of context and use it to beat up on poor Mitt.

I am sure that he's right about the upper end of the scale. He knows that end pretty well, as I think we're all aware. But my problem is with his assumptions about the other end of the scale. He makes it sound like the poorest of the poor are cozily nesting in the soft, velvety folds of a fluffy, warm safety net spun of the finest cashmere. My, that does sound appealing, doesn't it? I'm sure that if you asked any of the affected population, they would tell you that it's not exactly that way. I don't think I need to elaborate any further on that.

Then there's this: "If it needs repair, I'll fix it." For all I know, that may be a genuine, heartfelt sentiment. But it's kind of hard to square it with his statement at the 2008 RNC convention, "It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is." And surely Mitt has noticed that Congress is currently paralyzed by and, come the next election, perhaps controlled by a Republican party for whom the need to slash bigger holes in any safety net, if not get rid of it entirely, is an article of faith. So that statement is an expression of either cynical calculation or breathtaking ignorance. (The determination of which one it is is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Mitt wants to portray himself as this guy who feels your pain, unlike his presumed opponent in the upcoming presidential election, in whom he purports to have detected an "extraordinary disconnect between what [the president] thinks America is experiencing right now and what’s really happening". This is coming from the guy who casually wagers $10,000 as a gentlemanly bet, or characterizes the $370,000 he earned in speaking fees in a single year as "not very much". To be sure, Obama is a wealthy man, at least by my standards, although he's not in the same league as Romney by a long shot; but I don't hear him going around claiming to be just like you or me. To me, Romney just comes across as the political equivalent of Vanilla Ice, trying to pass himself off as someone he's not in a hilariously obvious way. Joe Sixpack, I just hope you're paying attention.

Ice, Ice, Baby!