Romney Blames Election Loss on Moochers

Mitt Romney is proving that the gaffes didn’t end with his presidential campaign. The election 2012 loser cited President Obama’s “gifts” to young people, women and minorities as a reason for his defeat.

“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Romney told fundraisers and donors in a conference call. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”

He added, that, “with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group.”

The disdain Romney has for Americans who are less fortunate than him is simply stunning.

In making those inane and out-of-touch remarks, Romney once again proves how little he understands of the plight of ordinary people in this country and the electorate as a whole. His recent comments also demonstrated that he wasn’t really sorry when he apologized for telling donors in May that 47 percent of Americans are freeloaders.

Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey:

His explanation is beyond simplistic, ahistorical and more than a little self-serving. Didn’t polls show throughout the election year that most Americans opposed healthcare reform? Didn’t Republicans think the policy would prove so problematic that they hung it around the president’s neck, with the epithet “Obamacare?” How many candidates have won the White House just by delivering up pork?

Romney couldn’t be expected to acknowledge that he offered up “gifts” of his own: extended tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, a shredding of the regulations that would keep big investors from running amok, unfettered access for big energy companies to America’s wildlands.

One of the most striking, and persistent, results of public opinion polls throughout 2012 was how the public felt about the two men running for the Oval Office. At the bottom, a majority of Americans felt President Obama understood people like them.

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— Posted by Tracy Bloom.