Posted on 10/15/2012 11:21:41 AM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
Driving around today and heard Rush struggling to get his mind around the 47% charge, the meaning thereof, and how to counter these meaningless charges. Part of me wanted to phone in because I know what he is missing. But I've tried before and never gotten through.
In the hopes that Rush Freeps or if not then somehow ideas can percolate up to the great Maha-Rushi - here's my attempt to help him out.
The RATS think that the "47%" line is the RATS golden chalice their keys to the kingdom. All they really have to do is bring it up in the debates and power is theirs forever. Rush was thinking that there was an easy way to rebut this and in my mind there is.
There are two basic flaws in the RATs argument that need to be pointed out and the issue goes away. Here they are:
1. Implicit in the RATS arguing about the 47% is that this purports to show that Romney only cares about 53% of Americans. This is NOT what he said. He said that as a matter of political STRATEGERY it did not make sense to actively expend campaign resources to go after the VOTES of the dependent class. It's the difference between political stragerery and policy. As president, I feel sure that Romney would govern with the interests of the entire country in mind. But as candidate, he has to expend resources where they will do the most good. In short the dems would have you believe that the "47%" is about policy. It's not. It's about strategery and tactics.
2. Implicit in the RATs attack (and now explicit) is that their candidate is "for the 100%". This is demonstrably false both in terms of strategery AND more importantly with regard to governing. He has proved this over and over. He truly is the purely partisan hack, with every political and policy move being viewed through a partisan prism. Thus their attacks are pure projection as is the case about 100% of the time.
There is no reason to apologize for stating that fact.
Of course. And Romney has embodied those principles in how he has lived his life. He has walked the walk. Which was a point made at the convention and can be made again in the debate and beyond.
In a word - never.
Precede your list with a comment like, “You and I both know you are misrepresenting what I said, but let’s for a minute talk about what ‘47’ really means to the American people...”
As someone else said, part of the key is that Romney NOT repeat the comment or try to clarify.
I think it’s a winner.
Good points. He can say Obama ignored those who voted to keep 40-something percent of the government Republican. And ignored that they voted for Scott Brown during the healthcare bill debate as well.
Romney just needs to say he misspoke, and meant to say that it would be harder to get the votes of the roughly 47% of people who lean towards Obama, but that he still plans to try. And that if he can’t convince them to vote for him this time, he plans to have them convinced in time for 2016 by being a great president.
If we could turn this into Romney vs the Projects this will be the greatest electoral victory since Washington.
Romney was rightly stating that those who do not pay federal income taxes are not going to be particularly sympathetic to arguments lower income taxes. They have no dog in that fight, in their minds.
HOWEVER, Romney should stress that his program will ESPECIALLY help those who can’t pay income taxes because their income is too low. Those are the ones who suffer most by economic disturbances.
Democrats stoke their envy and hatred of the “rich” to blind them to these facts.
Beautiful.
Yes.
Liberals have for decades been shaking down the US taxpayers and playing this ‘emotional blackmail’ shtick.
If the government STILL wants more money from me, I say: Go find the guy you hired to take it from me all these past decades... and if HE doesn’t have it-TOO BAD!! I ALREADY paid and now I am completely skinned.
After decades of taxpayers forking over billions and ever more to fund government largess, never ONCE have the Christian, working, tax-paying people of the United States of America been thanked, NEVER!!! INSTEAD we are demonized and worse because greedy and unprincipled politicians want to buy votes, secure an office and hold power at our expense!!!! ENOUGH!!!!
Right you are 2K2B4G !
The Censoring Liberal Agenda Media, (CLAM), did its job well.
Now comes the inconvenient truth of fact checking. Sic ‘em!
Them’s the facts.
Team obamugabe and their media enablers have telegraphed their moves for tomorrow night. It’s going to be the 47%. Need to be ready for that and handle it gracefully, skillfully and convincingly.
I actually thought Romney was saying that 47% of obama’s voters would never vote for him; therefore, he could never appeal to them. However, he could appeal to the other 53% and bring them over.
Basically yes that’s what he said. But appealing to a group of voters is one thing. Governing as the president of all Americans is something else again. Not enough distinction has been made between these two ideas and that is my main point and should be a point of emphasis IMHO.
If this is taken as a serious issue, it gives it more weight than it deserves. It is a silly assertion, taken out of context and put forth by a desperate campaign would be my first statement.
I would not use the words “dependent class”. I would just shrug it off, and say a certain % of the population always votes for the Democrat, and there is no sense wasting ads and campaign time on people who will probably not change their minds and vote Republican, and the criticism is unfounded and taken out of context.
Romney doesn’t need to get into the “meme” of his 47% comment... all he needs to say, if challenged by Obama regarding his 47% comment, is this:: “Mr. President, Americans want a leader that is more focused on lowering that number by increasing employment rather than increasing that number by lowering employment, as your policies have done over the last four year. On top of that, Americans all over the country have expressed great concern to me over your comments earlier this year to Russian President Medvedev as you assured him that you would have more flexibility in missile defense negotiations after November should you be reelected. I would like for you to explain to me and the American people what you meant by that comment?”
I think via crowd sourcing we have come up with an effective response.
1. Remarks were off the cuff and taken out of context.
2. My policies are aimed at increasing the number of working Americans while your administration has done just the opposite.
3. When elected president I will work hard to advance the interests of all Americans.
Voters are citizens (or supposed to be).
Taxpayers are legal residents (or supposed to be).
They're not the same population.
-PJ
There's nothing here worth worrying about ~ Mitt and others leaped to some false conclusions ~ and unnecessarily, and cruelly for some, confounded two totally different issues.
The first 47% deal was the number of people who filed federal income tax returns but did not pay any net federal personal income taxes.
It wasn't about 47% not paying taxes ~ only a fool who'd been living in a cave for the last 3 centuries could possibly think that ~ no one escapes the United States of America without paying taxes ~ either directly, or indirectly.
Let me repeat that ~ NO ONE gets away with not paying taxes!
Professional talk show hosts (e.g. Hannity was one) regularly confused this very narrow question, which is the culmination of a Ronald Reagan policy, and actually said "47% paid no taxes" ~ and said it like it was meaningful.
The other issue was Obama's regular level of support. Even though he's been below 50% ~ at roughly 47 % ~ for most of the last two years, his supporters ~ e.g. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, that crowd, are hardly dependent class people. They are simply stupid. As is Obama. The man is stupid. 47% of the voters who've hung with him are stupid.
As soon as you mix the two groups in your mind ~ stupid people who vote for Obamugabe, and people who do not owe federal personal income tax, you make a whopper of a mistake.
If you actually believe that, we have to ask why you are in Obama's 47% because you're certainly stupid enough to be there if you think Social Security recipients, 100% disabled veterans, and low income people in general are ALL Obamugabe supporters!
Now we don't want anybody to think anyone is stupid unnecessarily ~ so it turned out somebody got to Romney, explained it to him, and he apologized.
Sad to see some of his most ardent supporters still out there beating the 47% drum ~ they'are like the chimp lineup over at the DNC trying the same trick ~ pounding that drum ~ but there's nothing there.
He went on to say he was going to run a campaign to pull in the 5% to 10% he saw as undecided independents "in the middle".
That belief ~ that there's even a middle ~ is problem enough, but apparently 90% of the voting public wasn't in his target zone ~ which, interestingly enough, has been one of my criticisms of the guy for the last 5 years ~ and if you search FR enough you should find it. It's not like he kept it secret, but I think I'm the only one in FR who ever took him at his word, and there he was raising money from rich people using those very words.
I think cooler heads got to him on that ridiculous belief ~ probably Newt. He's been instructed to go after voters, not middles!
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