Mr. Electable hones his message: "I'm not concerned about the very poor"

Along the lines of "I like being able to fire people," here's another stupid Romney line the Democrats will gleefully use against him:

"I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."

Oof.



Stunning enough. But the problems with this interview go beyond a tone-deaf 1%-er delivering another juicy ad into the Democrats' hands. If you keep listening, you'll hear Romney reveal a vision of a permanent welfare state that is as bleak as any liberal's:

We will hear from the Democrat party, "the plight of the poor," and there's no question, it's not good being poor. . . . We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it, but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.

And don't forget the prisons and workhouses. I know Romney gives generously to charity but what a cold fish he is. Can't he hire someone to teach him to show empathy?

But my real point is that a conservative candidate would talk about increasing opportunity for the very poor, about lessening the need for food stamps and housing vouchers by reducing government and invigorating the economy, rather than touting the awesomeness of our massive, dependency-inducing welfare state and suggesting it might need some beefing up.

But Romney's no conservative. So this is to be expected.

H/t: Gateway Pundit

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Thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking. See her post on same: BlunderMitt: Let Them Eat Food Stamps; Plus: PPP results point to Santorum. Yes, there's still hope for Santorum. Bill Kristol says the same. Come on over, Newt-fanciers!

Also see Jonah Goldberg: What is Wrong With This Guy?
My theory: In Mitt's world, the permanent welfare state, like the government takeover of health care, isn't worth getting angry about. If anyone thinks Romney is anti-big-government I'd like to see what they're basing that on.

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PS: Rick Perry's oopses can't hold a candle to this unforced whopper of Romney's.

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Many thanks to Mark Steyn, who links here in his response to Romney's big government toleration of "the very poor":

Romney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.

Bingo. Read the whole thing.

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Also linked at NYT's Caucus blog. Thanks.

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