Already scrambling to steady a struggling campaign, Republican Mitt Romney confronted a new headache Monday 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, calling it “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.
"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.
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, said he knew what it felt like to worry about being "pink-slipped," 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.
Politicians are
frequently more candid when speaking at fundraisers that are closed to the media
than they are at public events; to supporters who have paid handsomely to see
them, they offer up inside takes on their campaigns, their policies and their
world views. The Detroit News
AHT/HJ