Not since former President George H.W. Bush, who famously could not figure out how to use a price scanner at a grocery store, have we seen a politician so out of touch with everyday people, as Mitt Romney was today. Mr. Romney, in a phony, pathetic attempt at empathy, informed voters today that he, too, is unemployed.
Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop here 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.”
Forget the audacity of hope. This is the audacity of dope. The dope is a man whose net worth is reportedly over $200 million, a sum that none of the Florida voters Romney met with will likely ever get close to seeing in their own bank accounts. Simply removing his tie for campaign events, while still wearing designer suits and joking about not working, does not make Mitt Romney an average American.
And just how did Mitt make his fortune? Check out this piece from the conservative New York Post.
However, the former private equity firm chief’s fortune — which has funded his political ambitions from the Massachusetts statehouse to his unsuccessful run for the White House in 2008 — was made on the backs of companies that ultimately collapsed, putting thousands of ordinary Americans out on the street. That truth if it becomes widely known could become costly to Romney, who, while making the media rounds recently, told CNN’s Piers Morgan that “People in America want to know who can get 15 million people back to work,” implying he was that person.
Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought companies and often increased short-term earnings so those businesses could then borrow enormous amounts of money. That borrowed money was used to pay Bain dividends. Then those businesses needed to maintain that high level of earnings to pay their debts.
In other words, Mitt Romney is a corporate raider who made his fortune off of putting people out of jobs and destroying companies. He clearly knows nothing of the pain of average Americans and the sacrifices they make when they lose their jobs. And profiting off of others’ misery mixed with false empathy surely won’t endear Mr. Romney to voters.