Steve Benen: In Florida Romney jokes about being 'unemployed'

[flpoljunkie]

June 16, 2011 12:35 PM
Romney jokes about being ‘unemployed’

For a guy whose awkward sense of humor keeps raising eyebrows, this incident in Florida this morning probably won’t help Mitt Romney’s reputation.

Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.

“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”

I don’t want to sound humorless about this, and I’m sure Romney was just trying to be charming. Indeed, comments like these may very well be a deliberate self-deprecating strategy because Romney strutted around New Hampshire on Tuesday as if he’d already won the presidency, and no one likes an overconfident jerk.

more...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_06/romney_jokes_about_being_unemp030314.php

[denverbill]

1. It sounds like America is better off whenver Romney is unemployed.

I hope he stays that way forever.

I imagine Romney's solution for unemployment is to fire as many government employees as possible and then cut his own taxes.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Romney: 'It breaks my heart to see so many Floridians who are out of work.'

"It breaks my heart to see so many Floridians who are out of work,'' Romney said during a news conference after the event. "Obama has failed Florida.''

This is especially rich, after reading this from Benen in the OP...


“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like jobs, workers, employees, and jobs. <…>

“Because Mitt Romney knows just how to trim the fat. He rescued businesses like Dade Behring, Stage Stories, American Pad and Paper, and GS Industries, then his company sold them for a profit of $578 million after which all of those firms declared bankruptcy. Which sounds bad, but don’t worry, almost no one worked there anymore.

“Besides, a businessman can’t be weighed down with a bleeding heart. As one former Bain employee put it, ‘It was very clinical…. Like a doctor. When the patient is dead, you just move on to the next patient.’”

Does Mitt Romney really want to joke about being “unemployed”?

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. In other words, Romney is Gordon Gekko.

Does he not realize that Gekko was the BAD guy?

[CakeGrrl]

3. It's IMPERATIVE that the Dems get their stuff together on messaging.

He may turn off a few people on these campaign stops, but people need to know he's dangerous to their economic health besides being just socially awkward. The MSM will be of zero help, so I hope Plouffe and Co. have been planning an end-around.

[Enrique]

7. unfortunately their strategy will be to blur the differences

imo, they will try to make Romney seem as much like Obama as possible, so people have no reason to vote for him (vote for Romney, that is).

It would be a good strategy for Obama, imo, but terrible for the country.

[Raine1967]

4. And in NH he make a joke about sexual harassment.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/romney-jokes-that-waitresses-grabbed-his-butt-video.php

During a campaign stop Tuesday morning at a New Hampshire diner, Romney posed for a photo with a group of four waitresses -- and then melodramatically jumped up, joking that one of them had grabbed his posterior.

What a sensitive fluck. There are something one should not joke about in these times... these are two such examples.

[flpoljunkie]

8. I thought that remark was not only weird, but grossly insensitive. What's his problem?

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Romney not nearly as polished as he seems...

My guess is he sabotages his own campaign.