Mitt Romney, anti-poverty warrior: Why his latest reinvention is so ridiculous

[applegrove]

Mitt Romney, anti-poverty warrior: Why his latest reinvention is so ridiculous

by Luke Brinker at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/13/mitt_romney_anti_poverty_warrior_why_his_latest_reinvention_is_so_ridiculous/

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After he lost to Obama, Romney seemed to express contrition for some of the more intemperate remarks he made during the campaign. In November 2013, he even suggested openness to immigration reform — a far cry from the days when Romney called for unauthorized immigrants to “self-deport.” But as he gears up to run again, Romney is reportedly ready to run to the right on the issue, perhaps sensing Jeb Bush’s vulnerability there. Yet even as Romney signals that he’ll campaign as a severe conservative on issues like immigration and taxes, Politico reports that he’ll be adopting a softer line on another topic. Come 2016, the former Bain Capital CEO aims to position himself as an anti-poverty warrior, according to the publication’s Maggie Haberman and James Hohmann.

“Romney, who made a fortune in the financial sector and was cast by Democrats in 2012 as a heartless businessman, wants to make tackling poverty — a key issue for his 2012 vice-presidential running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan — one of the three pillars of his campaign,” Haberman and Hohmann write. At this stage, it’s unclear what Romney’s anti-poverty agenda would entail. It’s certainly not as if his past statements offer any clues; in 2012, Romney told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien that he was “not concerned about the very poor” because “we have a safety net there.” Romney added that his campaign was “focused on middle-income Americans. My campaign — you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich. That’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That’s not my focus.”

Somewhere along the course of the past three years, however, Governor 47 Percent has decided that perhaps the poor are worth focusing on, after all. The man who railed against Americans who would never be convinced to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives” now fancies himself a latter-day Bobby Kennedy. (Coming soon: The Mitt Romney Appalachian tour?) Of course, Romney is unlikely to put forth any proposals that would meaningfully reduce the level of poverty in the U.S. Like his 2012 running mate and close associate Paul Ryan, Romney may outline a paternalistic anti-poverty approach, complete with Ryan’s “contracts” requiring the poors to be on their very best behavior or else face “sanctions.” He may repeat standard conservative tropes about how family breakdown contributes to poverty, even as he ignores the systemic economic problems that themselves cause familial woes. He’ll probably tout the purported trickle-down effects of tax cuts for “job creators.” And like the shamelessly cynical Nixon, Romney may well exploit good, old-fashioned xenophobia; if he’s going to run on an anti-immigrant platform, perhaps he’ll demonize immigrants as job-stealers. That narrative may be bunk, but no matter; there’s an election on.

At any rate, it may matter little what anti-poverty proposals Romney offers. By the time he launches his 2020 campaign, he’ll almost certainly have discarded them.




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[VanillaRhapsody]

1. Oh that will go over like a lead balloon!

[napi21]

2. People won't forget Romney of 2012 the same as they won't forget GWB's indanity.

NOBODY has forgotten the "47%" speech that he THOUGHT wasn't public. Sorry Mittens, we all saw it.
I don't think it's possible for him to rid himself of all the errors of the past campaign, thus, he doesn't stand a snowballs chance!

[Lint Head]

3. His latest reinvention is so ridiculous because it

proves he is fucked up in the first place.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. He's no longer the Cock-Fighting President?

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/mitt-romney-campaign-cold-open/n13459

[BarbaRosa]

5. Another shake of the Etch-A-Sketch.

[Scuba]

6. Romney's excited. He's got a whole new bunch of gaffes and flip-flops ready to roll out.

[C_U_L8R]

7. So what has Rmoney been doing for the past 4 years??

Not much really. Just sulking and collecting dividends.
Helping the poor? Not so much. Or rather not at all.

That Mitt Rmoney is nothing but contrived bullshyte.