Please do not be lulled into believing that all of America will be as repelled by the 47% comments as we are. Mitt is redefining the struggle as class war, BUT his method is to turn one class (ours, the 99%) into 2 parts fighting against one another. According to his equation, 99-47=52, giving him a win.
He wants Middle America to divide itself into Moochers vs Workers - his frame. It doesn't have to be accurate or truthful , it just has to work. That is how Mitt thinks he might make lemon from lemonade.
This is simply Joe The Plumber redux.
There will be more than a few Americans who will want to sign onto the Worker side with Mitt and the Republicans regardless of whether it hurts their self-interest or not. That is why the Romney campaign dredged up the old video where President Obama said he was for 'redistribution' Ring a bell? That was exactly the same word being bantered back and forth during the Joe the Plumber days. Plan on hearing that word a lot more in the coming days. I have named that word this week's drinking game and am laying in a store of vodka.
What we have here is the classic "Divide and Conquer" strategy that the wealthy deploy against poor and middle America. As a prime example, they get a large number of people to hate unions because they have it better than you do! "You have one slice of bread and he has two! Will you stand for that?" This is the argument promoted by those who own the fields of wheat and the mills for grinding the flour and the bakeries!
In the same vein, they get us to agree to slash our own safety nets for (sob!) the grandchildren. They don't give a rat's ass about your grandkids; they care about the inheritance of their grandkids and how taxing the wealthy more fairly will erode that for Pete's sakes!
Romney will continue to attempt to redefine his comments to appeal to that sliver of the populace who are still unaware of what a venal self-serving deceptive heartless weasel he is. Should I edit that? I hate personal attacks. Okay, how about "still unaware of what a venal self-serving deceptive heartless weasel he appears to be"? Consider it done.
I consider it the height of irony that the guy whose parents paid for his prep school, his college, his postgraduate degrees, his first house and who funded his first hedge fund considers himself "self-made".
As to redistribution - I am for redistribution myself. I want a redistribution of opportunity. I want people to have the same options I had and my parents had in life before the 1980s when tuition was affordable and when one job and one income could actually pay the rent and buy the food and run the car. I want a redistribution of the healthcare dollars to pay for the care of the citizens and not the stock options of the CEOs. I want minimum wage turned into a living wage tied to inflation. I want to take care of our veterans and our seniors and our poor and our ill.
What I am not concerned about is preserving Mitt Romney's personal wealth and the personal wealth of his friends, family, partners and cronies. I feel very sorry for anyone who buys Mitt's flawed math and morals and picks his 52% over the 99%.