Romney's "Very Poor" Moment: Stepping on the Message

It's almost like Mitt Romney doesn't know how to win.  Coming off a pretty good-sized victory here in Florida just yesterday, Mitt had this to say today:  

"I’m not concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there," Romney told CNN. "If it needs repair, I’ll fix it."

To be clear, this wasn't a gaffe: this is Romney Campaign strategy.

"But my campaign is focused on middle-income Americans," Romney continued. "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. My focus is on middle-income Americans."

And, from Romney's point of view, for good reason.  Poor people don't like him.

[As an aside, have you ever read a more stilted, awkward response?  Can you just see him replaying in his mind the conversation he had with some campaign strategist: "Governor Romney, you can choose where to focus.  The rich, middle-income Americans, or the very poor."  Unbelievable.]

From the Washington Post report:

Exit polls from Florida, where Romney won 46.4 percent of the vote in the GOP primary Tuesday, show that he had markedly less support among voters who are having a hard time making ends meet. The former Massachusetts governor was essentially tied with Gingrich among Florida voters who see their families as "falling behind financially."

This is actually a step or two beyond "I like being able to fire people," because they guy really doubled down on it.  If we're honest about the firing people comment, there was a context to it.  It was a poor choice of words, horrible phrasing, and really bone-headed.  But this is something else.  This is a conscious decision to exclude poor people as a key part of a campaign strategy.  

The campaign frame developing here on the GOP side is interesting.  You have super-rich Mitt Romney talking about "middle-income Americans" (about whom he knows nothing) while at the same time demonizing poor people.  And if you think the demonizing of poor people is not on the GOP agenda going forward, just ask Newt Gingrich, who called President Obama the "food stamp President," or even the current Congress which just seems bound and determined to waste as much of America's time as possible.

And speaking of President Obama, that's the other interesting piece for me: this idea the Republicans keep flogging that Obama is an "elite"... and "elites" are bad, even though the very good people at Dictionary.com tell me that "elite" means:

1. the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.

2.  persons of the highest class.

3.  a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group: the power elite of a major political party.

...and for the life of me, I A.) can't figure out what in the hell is wrong with that, and B.) don't see anyting untrue in at least those three with respect to President Obama.   

So the GOP is really trying out a dual frame, here: poor people suck and so do "elites" like Obama.  I have to tell you, as a communications person, I find this to be a very limiting strategy.  

Obama is bad.  He's uppity.  He's elite.  Poor people are bad.  They use their food stamps at strip clubs.  

The translation of this to any kind of coherent electoral strategy has completely eluded me.  

Comments

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000165090403]

We have had a war on poverty for 50 years now, have we made any progress? Today we have more poor than anytime in history. Talking about helping the poor and actually creating conditions that remedy the problem are quite different. Obama may say he will address the poor and he may throw them some crumbs, but they will take those crumbs and through procreation create more crumb grabbers and poverty will increase exponentially. Do the math.

[Benjamin J. Kirby]

Well, sorry, but I once again have to counter your contention -- "Today we have more poor than anytime in history" -- with actual facts.

Though the number of those in poverty has edged up as the recession has persisted, the number of Americans in poverty are hardly what they were in the 1950s, in the Reagan 80s, or even in the mid-90s when I worked in Washington.

Ref. 1: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/index.html

Ref: 2: http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/#3

Look, I don't really mind if you use my blog comment section to bash Obama. To each his own. I just ask that you consider my responses, which will include this link on a comprehensive analysis of what the Obama Administration has done on poverty:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/revised_creating_pathways_to_opportunity_report_10_14_11.pdf

Thanks.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000165090403]

Here's the story..."WASHINGTON — Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all

I do mind that you have seen my post as bashing Obama, I don't. I think he has an 8 year strategy and sacrificed many on the bottom, victims near poverty, including soldiers to accomplish his 8 year plan. Where the industrial revolution ended poverty for many, the computer revolution has increased it, and will continue to do so. There is no plan to employ displaced labor though the plans to increase efficiency marches on. He may be the best choice we have, but he isn't the best choice we could have if the system was structured to serve the masses rather than the classes. Obama won't win a second term because he's great, he'll win because the options are dumb and dumber.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000165090403]

Poverty
"The number from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of the world's developed economies, is actually 17.3%.

And how do we compare with other rich countries?

We rank 31st of the 34 countries that make up the OECD in terms of the percentage of our population that qualifies as poor. Of the 34 member states, only Mexico, Chile and Israel are worse off than we are. The UK (at 11%), Germany (8.9%) and France (7.2%) are all much lower. The OECD average is 11%.

In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries."
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/12/zakaria-mitt-you-need-to-worry-about-the-very-poor/

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000165090403]

In response to your "Creating Pathways to Opportunity" link I had seen it last year. It was introduced by a email that was received by one of Obama's departments. I get a lot of white house correspondents, sometimes to much, especially during the silly season, is there enough time in the day. ;-)