RUSH: Mitt Romney. Grab audio sound bite number 19. This is this morning on CNN. It was The Starting Point, a show with Soledad O’Brien. And she’s interviewing the winner of the Florida primary. She said, “Conservative writer Kathleen Parker…” Ahem. By the way, Kathleen Parker is not a conservative, but that’s just me. So we’ll just say “[Columnist] Kathleen Parker wrote about how it isn’t that Romney can’t connect with the people as has been pronounced repeatedly. It’s that the people can’t connect with him. This also explains why the far-less-perfect Newt can attract support against all reason. How do you fix that,” Mitt?
ROMNEY: I’m in this race ’cause I care about Americans. 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 America, the 90, 95% of Americans who right now are struggling and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.
RUSH: Okay.
“I like firing people.”
“I’m not concerned about the very poor.”
Both of them, if they’re stand-alones and taken out of context, are big problems — and they indicate a problem. Taken in context — which isn’t going to happen with the Drive-By Media. Taken in context, it’s understandable. But I even have a problem with this in context. “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” The safety net is one of the biggest cultural problems we’ve got! We had better be worried about it just like we had better get angry over Obamacare. Obamacare is worth getting mad about. Mitt said that it wasn’t. This biz, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there”?
Right, the safety net is contributing to the destruction of their humanity and their futures! Everybody knows what he’s trying to say but he didn’t say it and he makes himself a target with this stuff. He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican. And it’s gonna make it harder and harder and harder and harder to go after Obama because this turns around on him. You know, all these Wizards of Smart in the Republican establishment say, “We can’t have Newt out there! Why, Newt’s gonna be the topic. We need Obama to be the topic. We need Obama to be the guy campaign’s about. If Newt’s out there, it’s only gonna be about Newt.” Well, what evidence is there that it’s not gonna be about Romney with these kinds of statements?
Let me read to you what Aaron Goldstein wrote in the American Spectator today. “Note the contrast: Newt says insane things every now and then because he’s bombastic by nature. He sees himself as needing to fulfill a ‘big ideas’ image that he’s crafted. Romney, by contrast, says stupid things because he doesn’t know any better and it comes naturally to him.” It’s a hard-hitting piece here in the Spectator. “Neither of these character flaws is a prescription for success against Obama.” Like Romney, Obama says lots of stupid things: Corpsemen, 57 states, breathalyzer, take a pill; indicative of the fact that he’s just not as smart and well educated as he’s reputed to be.
“But Obama has the media covering every one of his screw-ups while Romney will have the media magnifying every one of his. It’s like what Rush noted yesterday about that Politico guy, Jon Martin, talking about Newt going for the ‘cracker vote’ in the South. If a conservative said that, he’d be out of a job but it’s a lefty Drive-By Media guy so it’s ‘ho-hum, another day in the office.'” And then he goes on to say that he’s really afraid that Romney’s ill-equipped to deal with what’s coming. Romney, too… You know, Romney complained about Newt’s onslaught. But he was in a position to outspend Newt 65 to one.
Don’t forget that number. So the Newt’s onslaught against Romney in the ad war arena wasn’t even a pinprick in the greater scheme of things. But Obama will be able to match Romney dollar for dollar. It says here that Romney “is not a very good politician. Sure he’s a nice guy. Seems more detached than likable.” This is the kind of stuff. And this just bouncing off the “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Yep, 65 to one. As I said, it’s in the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation, Jim Galloway. It’s right there in his headline. Sixty-five ads for every one Newt ad in Florida. So you can take whatever the exit poll data is and deemphasize it significantly.
Mitt comes out of Florida winning every category. But when you learn that he ran 65 ads for every ad that Newt ran, it kind of mitigates a little bit of power of this stuff. So we’re being told all kinds of falsehoods and have been told all kinds of falsehoods or misleading things by the establishment such as, “We can’t have Newt…” How many times have you heard this? “We can’t have Newt be the nominee because that means the campaign will be all about him. The media will make it about him, the Democrats will make it him, because Newt’s got so much baggage. We need a guy like Romney.”
And then you get the electability question. Well, where is the evidence of that? As somebody pointed out last week, he’s won 9 out of 25 elections — maybe 10 out of 26 election — and yet he’s got the “electability” category all sewn up. So Obama’s not that smart, not nearly as smart as his reputation, but the media is there to cover it up. But Romney will say things like, “I like firing people,” and again, in context, you can make a case for what he’s saying. I know what he means by this, “I don’t care about the very poor.” What he means is: They’re taken care of. He’s trying to relate and connect to the middle class with that statement. But the way he put it offers an opportunity for everybody to do everything but point that out.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to get the Romney sound bites here on the “not concerned about the very poor,” comment, two of them, actually, and then we’ll go to the media review of last night. So here’s Mitt on CNN this morning and Soledad O’Brien wants to know, “How do you fix this? Newt’s able to connect to people and you apparently aren’t?”
ROMNEY: I’m in this race ’cause I care about Americans. 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 America, the 90, 95% of Americans who right now are struggling and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.
RUSH: Everybody knows what he’s trying to say here, but you give them “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” you chop it off there and it could be about anything. I’m not concerned about the poor in the way they’re eating. I’m not concerned about the poor and the car they have. I’m not concerned about the poor and where they live. You can do all kinds of things with that. And it isn’t gonna be enough to say, (crying) “You’ve taken that out of context.” We know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to zero in and tell the middle class, “I’m thinking of you.” But this repair the safety net stuff? The safety net is contributing to poverty. The safety net contributes to poverty. It does not solve it. We’ve got proof every year since the Great Society and whatever else Johnson named it, starting in the sixties. It hasn’t fixed anything. Soledad O’Brien then followed up.
O’BRIEN: I gotta ask you, you just said “I’m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net,” and I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say, “That sounds odd.” Can you explain that?
ROMNEY: Well, you have to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them.
O’BRIEN: Got it.
RUSH: Oh. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. But even with the clarification you note the headline: “Mitt: I don’t care about the poor.” Headline’s out.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Did you see the stock market shoot up this morning after Romney said he didn’t care about the poor? I mean, it shot up! I don’t know if it was actually ’cause he said he didn’t care about the poor, but the market did shoot up. Mark Halperin, TIME Magazine just now on MSNBC, had a comment. They played the Romney sound bite and then Halperin had this to say…
HALPERIN: If this debate and this campaign is gonna be fought over who misspeaks and which side’s war room is better able to mock it on YouTube, I think the country will be the poorer for it. That’s not a defense of Mitt Romney. It’s a criticism of our business letting political opposition define the news cycle by taking something where the guy didn’t speak clearly.
RUSH: Weeeeeell, all of a sudden Halperin’s worried about taking people out of context when it happens to Romney. All of a sudden the Drive-Bys are concerned. “We’ll be poorer in our politics for this! Don’t doubt me: We’ll be poorer as a country if we continue to take people out of context.” (chuckling)