After his victory in Florida Tuesday night, Mitt Romney drew criticism for remarks he made during an interview with CNN, which some view as insensitive. According to the Associated Press, the Republican presidential front-runner told reporters that he was “not concerned about the very poor” as they have an “ample safety net.”
Both Democrats and Republicans immediately leaped on Romney’s remarks, saying they illustrated just how out of touch the former Massachusetts governor is with the majority of Americans. Romney’s chief rival, Newt Gingrich, has even incorporated his comments into some of his campaign speeches.
“I am fed up with politicians in either party dividing Americans against each other,” Gingrich said while campaigning in Reno, Nev. “I am running to be the president of all the American people and I am concerned about all the American people.”
Democrats also took the opportunity to censure Romney. President Barack Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, quickly tweeted, “So much for ‘we’re all in this together.’”
Romney, who has been criticized for seeming out of touch with many Americans, attempted to backpedal from his comments by saying they were taken out of context.
“You’ve got to take the whole sentence, all right, it’s mostly the same,” he told reporters on his campaign plane. “My energy is going to be devoted to helping middle-income people.”
Romney’s full remarks on CNN include, “I am not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 to 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”
But whether Romney was wrong or right is not the primary concern for his campaign, conservative blogger Erick Erickson said.
“The issue here is not that Romney is right or wrong, but that he is handing choice sound bites to the Democrats to make him as unlikeable as he made Newt Gingrich,” Erickson wrote on the conservative blog RedState.
Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online agreed.
“Every time he seems to get into his groove and pull away, he says things that make people think he doesn’t know how to play the game,” Goldberg said.
Romney has previously come under fire for saying he knows what it’s like to worry about being “pink-slipped” out of a job and that he “like[d] being able to fire people.”
