The Romney Tapes: The unraveling of a campaign.

It's been a couple of days since MotherJones released the secret Mitt Romney Tapes.

Holy shit.

These tapes provide a unique view into what Mitt Romney tells his donors and those close to him. The tapes,  a little over an hour in length (minus the 2 and a half missing minutes) is a Q & A session between Romney and his donors at a $50,000 a plate dinner in the mansion of private equity mogul, Marc Leder, (pictured right) located in Boca Raton Florida.

$50,000 a plate,man that's a middle class wage for an entire year, well not according to Romney.

During this little "elite" get together, Romney laid out his strategy for campaigning against Barack Obama. In the first clip that was released, Romney is seen and heard talking about what he thinks about nearly half the population:

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a the responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. But that's, that's an entitlement, and that the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48,49-40-he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax."

The contempt in this mans mind for nearly half the country is not surprising to me. Mitt Romney has been showing his true colors all throughout the campaign. Putting corporations above workers, hell even proclaiming that  corporations are people! His tax plans, give money to himself, and the rich at the expense of everybody else.  Usage of the phrases "You people", and "Those people" with such a dismissive tone. Not even having enough decency to put forward his plans for which loopholes he'd cut in the tax code to make his nearly impossible tax plan do what he promises it to do.

Even through all of this, I still can't quite say he hates the middle class, mostly because he has no idea who is even part of the middle class.

I can say this though, Mitt Romney, hates the poor.

Yeah, he hates us, as do some of his rich donor friends, not all of course. The person who took this video, and then released it (with the urging of James Carter the 4th, President Carters grandson, who did an interview on Current TV's, The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur) is one of those people who cared enough to let the American people know more about Mitts true self.

Kudos to you mystery person. America may just owe you one come November.

But back to Romney. His comments show a disdain for the poor and middle class, many of whom he needs to win this election.

Current TV has a great chart that breaks down the 47% of people Romney hates for paying no income taxes.

Seniors, those lazy bums. Workers who pay payroll taxes, get a job! err a better job! (maybe get into private equity like my friend Marc Leder) Students, people with disabilities, jobless people, pfft, stop dragging us down.

It's not like there isn't any jobs out there right...oh yeah...

Graph credited to The War Room w/Jennifer Granholm

With all kidding aside, this chart illustrates the types of people that shouldn't be paying income taxes anyway. Seniors have already paid their dues, workers who benefit from deductions like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which was bipartisan and championed by Ronald Reagan as; "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress." And Students, like me who have very little money to begin with. As well as the disabled, who can't work and therefore do not earn income, and then the working poor, those with two or three part time jobs working to feed their families and still don't make enough.

Let's keep it real here, the reason Mitt Romney, and other conservatives want these people to pay more taxes, or receive less benefits is because they want to keep the money themselves. It is they who feel entitled. Entitled to more, more wealth, more power, more recognition, even the Presidency.

For Romney, a friend of mine shared a theory. He feels (and I agree) that Romney isn't interested in solving Americas problems or being a leader. He's doing it because that's the only thing left that he hasn't achieved. He's run a successful business (one built on bankrupting businesses through loading it up with debt and taking  that money through dividends.) he was Republican governor of a liberal state, (which was 47th out of 50 in job creation during his tenture) and a bishop of his church (not gonna touch that one) Oh yeah, and he's super fucking rich! He's done everything else he set out to achieve, except for this. The point my good friend was trying to make is that Mitt Romney doesn't believe in America, Mitt Romney believes in Mitt Romney.

He feels entitled to the presidency, just like everything else in his life, and that's why he hates the poor, because he feels entitled and projects what he feels onto them.

It's class warfare, and Romney's the one waging it.

There is so much more on the Romney tapes I'd like to get into. This weekend I will be speaking on a Google + panel called TYTCommunity about this very subject with some very smart, very well informed progressives. Check it out.

Sources:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/18/exclusive-marc-leder-romney-fundraiser-speaks-out/
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1209/17/acd.02.html
http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/blog/will-the-real-47-please-stand-up-5-things-you-might-not-know
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2505
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/18/1133223/-Romney-Rejects-Ronald-Reagan
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/08/137698103/more-than-25-million-are-unemployed-or-cant-find-full-time-work