On Tuesday, President Obama reminded us that all politicians make mistakes, yet only Mitt Romney has created a gaffe-generating tool to help everyday folks experience what it’s like to be the GOP presidential nominee.
While last night should have been about Romney finally dropping the word “presumptive” from the title “Republican nominee,” he was instead overshadowed by Donald Trump’s relentless birther buffonery. Then, to cap off the evening, his campaign released its official “With Mitt” iPhone app, complete with a photo filter that prominently displays the phrase “A BETTER AMERCIA.”
Romney already has a well-known catalogue of gaffes, but for some reason remarks like “Corporations are people, my friend” never really caught on with the kids. The free “With Mitt” app promises to change all that. Just hours after Mashable spotted the misspelling, the campaign went viral and was trending on Twitter. That is, after all, what the app was designed to do, but the campaign intended phrases like “I’m a Mom for Mitt” to frame the faces of adoring Romney supporters, not cynical Internet goons who’ve already created a Tumblr to share their unauthorized vision of Romney’s Amercia.
This cyber-bullying is truly the most insidious type of intimidation. How’s Romney supposed to retaliate when he can’t give anonymous commenters forced haircuts? While others are piling on the campaign for all of the absurd mistakes it’s made in the past 24 hours, let’s focus on what Romney got right. Social media has a well-known pro-Obama bias, which is probably why no one’s talking about the fact that Romney’s team managed to release a whopping thirteen error-free filters.
Update: The Romney campaign has submitted a correction to Apple, but the review process could take about five business days. “Amercia” is here to stay, for now.
