The election is over, but Mitt Romney still has occasion to talk to his donors, and the topic of why people voted for this Barack Obama person keeps coming up. Romney still says it’s because they want handouts from the government:
>Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-aged women to back the president.
Romney argued that the Obama’s health care plan’s promise of coverage “in perpetuity” was “highly motivational” to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters. Pivoting to immigration, Romney said the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint him as “anti-immigrant” had been effective and that the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants had helped turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers.
He’ll never convince them to take personal responsibility and care for their lives!
Sadly, the reporter does not have a full transcript of the remarks, so we don’t have the context. In theory, this set of facts could be Romney offering a fulsome endorsement of the Obama presidency. Look at the helpful things he has done — he’s made college and health care more affordable, helped the children of illegal immigrants build a life in America, and so on! But I suspect Romney offered this in a more critical context rather than in the spirit of “all these people voted for Obama because he’s actually been a really good president.” It’s essentially the same idea Romney offered up when he insisted the NAACP didn’t support him because its members wanted “free stuff.”
