Romney's problem with this 'gaffe'...

[Drunken Irishman]

Let me first say that I don't believe Romney meant for his comment to sound the way it did. I do believe he was discussing insurance companies and had he replaced 'people' with 'insurance companies', the line probably would have been a rousing hit.

No one likes insurance companies.

But he didn't say insurance companies. Instead, he said people. So, even if the overall context suggests he didn't mean average, everyday Americans, it still is damning.

It's damning because it helps solidify the image that he is elitist.

Now remember back to the '92 election when George H.W Bush was supposedly amazed by the barcode scanner? It pushed this image that he was so out of touch that he didn't even know supermarkets had barcode scanners - let alone how they worked!

It wasn't true.

Well, at least in the way we remember it.

Bush had gone to a grocery store during the '92 Republican primary and did scan some items - but he didn't look on in amazement at the advancement in technology. You can view the video here:

Is the video all that damning? No. In the end, Bush didn't look nearly as awestruck as the media had initially said, yet, the image stuck and Bush was cast as an out of touch elitist during an economic recession and while that moment didn't cost him the election in '92, it just helped solidify his out of touch image.

Though not entirely true, it was something Americans could easily believe. "Bush had never seen a grocery scanner before?!? He looked amazed by the technology? I can see that! He's a total elitist snob anyway..."

It stuck because it was believable. It reinforced that image. Had it been Clinton in that same setting and we're probably dealing with a non-story because, in '92, Clinton didn't have the image of being an out of touch rich snob.

Like Bush, Romney has consistently fought this image that he's an out of touch, rich elitist asshole. His comments about being 'unemployed' and 'having to worry about that pink slip' don't help in changing perception. He's still seen, by a good number of Americans, as a corporate phony who, as the Daily Show put it last month, looks like the guy who fired your father.

This moment is damning not because it'll be taken out of context, but because Americans can see Romney saying something just like that. It's believable.

Just as Bush being amazed by that new technology in the 90s was believable.

So, while Romney probably didn't mean it to sound the way it did (and it'll be interesting watching Romney try to deflect any negative attack ads that use this quote as misleading, considering he took a totally misleading quote of Obama and used it in an attack ad not even two months ago...), the image has been set and it just plays up to it. Americans don't need to know the context. They'll believe it because, even if he didn't mean to say it, people can see him saying it.

[jberryhill]

1. Insurance companies are people, my friend

[Richardo]

4. !!

[elleng]

2. I agree.

He appears to be more careless/impatient/whatever in these situations, getting himself into lots of trouble.
Compare with PrezO??? GUESS who wins!!!

[Richardo]

3. It's the perception that matters, that's why so many think Al Gore claimed to invent the internet

In today's context-free sound bite 'media', the meme means has more significance than the actual content.

Which is why I don't believe any reported quote I hear without at least knowing the 30 seconds before and after the chosen phrase.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Yup. Remember Kerry's 'I was for it before I was against it'?

That's how it was played. Kerry was talking about a supplemental appropriation bill that he had voted for earlier versions, though opposed the final passage.

He said: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Kerry called it an inarticulate moment.

Kerry was honest about it. His vote at the end against it was in protest - as he wanted the rich to foot some of the bill.

It didn't matter. Only reinforced the idea Kerry was a flip-flopper.

[karynnj]

10. The additional thing was that the media helped by pretending not to understand

what Kerry had said. The sad thing was that it was probably Kerry's politeness and willingness to answer hecklers that led to that "inarticulate moment". He had answered an earlier question about 5 minutes before and when a second heckler asked (they were phrasing the question why did you vote against giving the troops what was needed), he said he already answered it and gave that unfortunate shorthand. It is actually likely that if Kerry thought that flip flopping was a problem he had, he would have been more sensitive to how the Republicans would use it. At the time, it was probably the idea that he would refuse the troops what they need that was the issue he wanted to reject.

Kerry did NOT have a pattern of flip flopping - like Romney does. He had a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 96 - the highest in the Senate. Evidence of being a very consistent environmentalist that he publicly was since he participated in the 1970 earth day. His Yale speech on foreign policy - given as a student in 1966, showed even then he was the internationalist, concerned about understanding the cultures of other countries,that he is today. On civil rights issues, his votes regularly were scored as 100% by various civil rights groups each year in the Senate. His positions on the budget have always been fiscally responsible - in keeping with him wanting the tax cuts for the wealthy rolled back to pay for those tax cuts. Though he was more fiscally conservative than many Democrats, he also was always very driven by his social justice Catholic values - leading him to fight for many programs for the poor and to be the sponsor of Youthbuild.

Where it looked like there were flip flops, it was easy to see that it was because he genuinely is an independent thinker who does not neatly fit any label. On votes, the choice is always just yes or no, when with all Senators, yes, but and no, but are the real positions. Kerry seemed to always put out explanations of his votes. Kerry, more than most candidates, had very well developed philosophic views on most big issues that he had articulated for decades. He also never went for easy answers that ignored the complex reality. Over the last 7 years, I have been surprised when seeing or reading speeches on CSPAN or in the Senate record and often thinking that if he updated the statistics or cultural references, he could give the same speech today and no one would think it - say - a decade old.

The fact is that there are very few 5 term Senators with the consistency that Kerry has shown.

[frazzled]

5. Nah, the press is just testing out how he'll handle it

All the candidates have these gaffes (though Romney seems more prone to them than most). Obama had the "guns and religion" gaffe (though it was somewhat different: he was secretly recorded talking to a group of donors and it got out; he wasn't campaigning in a public arena). He did fine after the news cycle died down.

The sad thing to me is: I think Romney will survive this, and possibly the Bain Capital stuff, because many Amurkins actually like this Gordon Gecko type, the take-no-prisoners businessman, the guy who gets filthy rich raiding corporations and outsourcing jobs. It's the cowboy figure still for them, and they still have this blind spot. Don't for a minute think that every citizen thinks like we do.

What is more likely to take him down (I hope) is his kind of creepy, boring, awkward manner.

[Spazito]

7. "I like being able to fire people"....

that is one hell of a gaffe. I agree that is not what he was meaning, per se, but it IS how he thinks being one of the 'chosen few', a 1%er. It is like an accidental truth that slipped out, imo.

[pacalo]

8. Freudian slip for sure, & it makes one wonder how he speaks about the "little people" in private.

[Spazito]

11. Yes, that's it exactly, imo

If they are not the "corporations are people" people, they are to be used and thrown away, pink-slipped without a second thought.

[BootinUp]

9. What did I miss??

[etherealtruth]

12. Very interesting (and perceptive) take

"This moment is damning not because it'll be taken out of context, but because Americans can see Romney saying something just like that. It's believable."

[csziggy]

13. One of the MSNBC guys compared it to the Dean scream

Which I think is appropriate.

What gets me is how gleeful Romney looked when he said it. Even if the comment is taken out of context, there is no way to remove that smirk from his face while he tells a country with over 8% unemployment that he likes to fire people.