In this Aug. 18, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gets into his car to attend a fundraising event on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012 in Nantucket, Mass. The unprecedented success of Romney to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the costliest presidential race ever can be traced in part to a secretive data-mining project that sifts through Americans’ personal information _ including their purchasing history and church attendance—to identify new and likely, wealthy donors, The Associated Press has learned. AP/Evan Vucci
WASHINGTON — Republican Mitt Romney, already scrambling to steady a struggling campaign, confronted a new headache after a video surfaced showing him telling wealthy donors that almost half of all Americans “believe they are victims” entitled to extensive government support. He added that as a candidate for the White House, “my job is not to worry about those people.”
At a hastily called news conference late Monday, Romney conceded the comments weren’t “elegantly stated” and that they were spoken “off the cuff.”
President Barack Obama’s campaign quickly seized on the video, obtained by the magazine Mother Jones and made public on a day that Romney’s campaign conceded it needed a change in campaign strategy to gain momentum in the presidential race.
Romney allies were already trying to curb growing complaints that the campaign missed opportunities at the Republican convention, on foreign unrest and, most crucially, on the U.S. economy, which is seen as Obama’s weakest point.
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney is shown saying in a video posted online by the magazine. “There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
“Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax,” Romney said.
Romney said his role “is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
In his remarks to reporters, Romney did not dispute the authenticity of the hidden-camera footage, but he called for the release of the full video, instead of the clips posted online. He sought to clarify his remarks but did not apologize.
“It’s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I was speaking off the cuff in response to a question. And I’m sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that,” Romney said. “Of course I want to help all Americans. All Americans have a bright and prosperous future.”
He continued: “It’s a message which I am going to carry and continue to carry which is that the president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them. Therefore I’m not likely to draw them into my campaign as effectively as those in the middle.”
Mother Jones writer David Corn told MSNBC that the video came from a May 17 fundraiser at the Boca Raton, Florida, home of Marc Leder, co-CEO of the investment firm Sun Capital Partners.
The magazine had said earlier that the date and location of the remarks were not being disclosed to protect the identity of the person who provided the video. On MSNBC, Corn said the source had allowed those details to be released.
About 46 percent of Americans owed no federal income tax in 2011, although many of them paid other forms of taxes. More than 16 million elderly Americans avoid federal income taxes solely because of tax breaks that apply only to the elderly, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Obama’s campaign called the video “shocking.”
“It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.
The private remarks are the latest in a string of comments from the multimillionaire Republican businessman whom Democrats have criticized as out of touch. During the primary campaign, Romney insisted that he was “not concerned” about the very poor, and said that his wife drove a “couple of Cadillacs.” Aides to Obama’s campaign said the latest video would help them continue to make the case that Romney doesn’t understand the concerns of average Americans.
Voters say they believe Obama has a better understanding of their problems and concerns than Romney does. A CBS/New York Times poll showed 60 percent of likely voters said Obama understands the needs and problems of people like them, while 37 percent said he did not. For Romney, the same question found that 46 percent felt he did understand people’s needs, 48 percent said he didn’t.
The remarks came at a closed-door fundraiser that Mother Jones reported occurred after Romney had clinched the Republican nomination. To protect the identity of the person who provided the remarks, Mother Jones blurred out the video and did not provide the date or location of the fundraiser. Romney formally clinched the nomination May 29 and formally accepted it last month at the Republican convention in Tampa.