Mitt Romney’s 47% Problem : The New Yorker

…something else Romney related in the video: the story of his own wealth.

I have inherited nothing. There is a perception, “Oh, we were born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and so forth.” Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America.

Romney was the son of a governor and an auto executive who gave him a wealth of connections, a private education, college tuition, a stock portfolio that he lived on while in graduate school, help buying a first house. That he recognizes the value of none of these things is both dismaying and discouraging for anyone who thinks that he will be able to do much to actually encourage opportunity in America. He is clear enough about one difference money can make in life, when he tells those present, “Frankly, what I need you to do is to raise millions of dollars,” and talks about how many foreign customers his campaign consultants have had. But Romney did, in the video, talk about a disadvantage that he feels he has labored under: had his father “been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot of winning this.”

Mitt Romney’s 47% Problem : The New Yorker

The GOP called themselves the party of “Deep Thinkers” and the Vulcans just 8 years ago. Of course, Santorum (Latin for asshole — Bob Kerrey) will say he meant “the people who consider themselves smart and you dumb.” And “elite” has always pissed me off when we know one thing makes you elite in America: nauseating amounts of money.

Rick Santorum: ‘Smart People’ Will Never Be On Our Side (VIDEO)

"We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country," Santorum said, according to BuzzFeed and a video posted by Right Wing Watch, available above. "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do."

Rick Santorum: ‘Smart People’ Will Never Be On Our Side (VIDEO)

Suggesting your voters are dumb should be fatal, but this is the party that embraces ignorance and (self-)deception and eschews facts.

It’s notable how often the phrase “double-down” comes up in various contexts with regard to Nit.

Mitt Romney’s Libya Blunder Reflects Larger Failings : The New Yorker

“It almost feels like Sarah Palin is his foreign policy adviser,” Matthew Dowd, a former political adviser to President George W. Bush, told the Washington Post. “It’s just a huge mistake on the Romney campaign’s part—huge mistake.”

Obama’s subsequent jibe that Romney “shoots first and aims later” hit home. …

[I]t is widely thought that Romney’s political advisers aren’t the brightest bulbs—his entire campaign has been a litany of errors. What has been less remarked upon is the makeup of Romney’s foreign-policy team. For a former businessman who claims to willing to hire the best and smartest regardless of background, it is a remarkably unimpressive and ideologically driven group, consisting largely of washed up neocons and Cold Warriors, many of whom served in the Administration of George W. Bush. …

Kristol, Bolton, Gerecht, Cohen, and several other of the people who are listed as informal advisers on Romney’s Web site are former members of the Project for the New American Century, the neocon think tank that will forever be linked to the invasion of Iraq.

My theory is that in this area, as in others, Romney has demonstrated that he’s a poor politician, allowing himself to be co-opted and hoodwinked by the right.

When Romney decided to run in 2012, the best argument for his candidacy was that he had nothing to do with the Bush Administration and could appeal to moderate voters. But rather than trying to make a break with the Bush Administration and portraying himself as a different sort of Republican, one who has learned from the mistakes of the past, Romney has embraced the Bush heritage—one that delivered the Presidency to Obama in 2008.

Mitt Romney’s Libya Blunder Reflects Larger Failings : The New Yorker

Be afraid. Be very afraid of Gnit.