by JASMINE ELSHAMY Staff Writer
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was caught on a hidden tape released on September 19 during a fundraiser in May, saying he gave up on trying to convince about half of American citizens who do not pay income taxes to vote for him.
Romney’s speech was given to his wealthy supporters, who paid $50,000 to sit in a fancy room and listen to him talk about how Palestine has no interest in peace with Israel. The main point that everyone took away from his speech is that 47 percent of Americans will support Obama’s reelection, are government freeloaders who pay no income taxes, see themselves as “victims”, and cannot be persuaded to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
“So Romney thinks that teachers who get paid under $50,000 a year are playing victims? Ha. That’s a good one,” says sophomore Jordan Bussiere.
Alex Castellanos, who advised Romney’s 2008 campaign but is not affiliated with his current one, said there is reason for the Republican’s team to be alarmed. “The only thing in politics that is worse than voters deciding that they don’t like you is when voters decide you don’t like them,” he said.
The video has reached millions of people, and the Obama campaign is using it to their advantage, supporting Obama’s mantra that he represents the middle class, the majority, not the few.
“Romney is not someone who I want to represent this country. He is clearly someone who just wants to be a representative of people who apparently do not ‘play the victims’,” says sophomore Lindsey Frankel.
The comments were released by the magazine “Mother Jones” with the help of Jimmy Carter’s grandson, James Carter IV. Carter is a Democratic opposition researcher, and had searched YouTube every few days for keywords such as “Romney” and “Republicans”.
Carter sought out details of the video, but the person who uploaded the video was intent on remaining anonymous to the public. Carter shared the video with David Corn, a journalist with “Mother Jones”, who then reported a story concerning the scandal.
“James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa,” the former president told his grandson in an email obtained by the Associated Press, according to the Huffington Post. This was a great victory for the Carters, especially because Romney and his campaign had been attacking the elder Carter on things like foreign affairs to small business policy, hoping to burden the current president with the less popular remnants of his Democratic predecessor, according to the Huffington Post.