That is the first line of tomorrow's New York Times column by Charles Blow, titled Romney, the Rich and the Rest, about which Blow has already tweeted this evening, seeking feedback (which you can give him via @CharlesMBlow).
He reminds us of a number of the Mittster's 'greatest hits' such as this:
This is the same man who in November claimed that federal employees are making “a lot more money than we are.” What?! We? What we? Please direct me to the federal employees with the $20 million paychecks. In fact, The Washington Post pointed out in November that federal employees on average “are underpaid by 26.3 percent when compared with similar nonfederal jobs, a ‘pay gap’ that increased by about 2 percentage points over the last year while federal salary rates were frozen.”
You can read the column for a lot more examples.
For example, after reminding us that Romney supported the Ryan budget, Blow informs us of some of the impact of that budget (keep reading below the squiggle):
What does this mean for specific programs? Let’s take the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, since “food stamps” have been such a talking point in the Republican debates. The report says the Romney plan “would throw 10 million low-income people off the benefit rolls, cut benefits by thousands of dollars a year, or some combination of the two. These cuts would primarily affect very-low-income families with children, seniors and people with disabilities.”
And then Blow sticks in the dagger and twists it:
Does that sound like a man trying to “fix” our social safety nets? Absolutely not. Romney is so far up the beanstalk that he can no longer see the ground.
There's more. After informing us of the impact of Romney's tax proposals which are heavily tilted towards the already wealthy (as regular readers of this site well know from multiple diaries and front page posts), Blow hits Romney with this:
For a man who’s not worried about the rich, he sure seems to want them to rake in more cash.
Those words appear in a stand-alone - and thus standing out - paragraph.
As do the next two sentences:
This has nothing to do with context. This has everything to do with a caviar candidate’s inability to relate to a chicken-soup citizenry.
I titled this post with the first line of the column, a reference to the Wizard of Oz. As he began, Blow ends this column - which I think is devastating to Romney - by again returning to that classic film based on the Frank Baum book:
Romney is not only cold and clumsy, he’s disastrously out of touch, and when talking about real people, out of sorts. If only he had a heart, and if only that heart was connected to his brain.
We know that Romney is at least school smart, first in his class at Brigham Young and near the top of his class at Harvard Law. Romney will want us to think him smart because after all he is very, very, very rich, although maybe not in the category of a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates.
He is also not in the class of either Buffett or Gates, both of whom are at least honest enough to recognize their responsibility to contribute more to society (even if I may disagree with how Gates uses his wealth to influence education policy).
If only he had a heart - a perfect metaphor for the Tin Man of the current presidential cycle.
Isn't interesting how many really smart people are coming to the same conclusion on Romney? I have been fortunate to be writing about the words of each today:
Eugene Robinson: Romney Fails the Empahty Test
Romney Isn't Concerned on the column of the same title by Paul Krugman.
And now this posting on Charles Blow.
Key voices in the media are pointing out that the emperor's new suit is invisible.
We can only hope that the American people will see through the blather and come to the same conclusion.