The day after the debate, Romney now disavows his 47% claim.
Boy, I bet Mitt was pissed Obama never brought it up, so that he could have used this opportunity to spin that statement. Despite the outcry from fellow Democrats (like myself) for not mentioning the 47% comment, maybe Obama didn’t bring it up because he was clever enough not to give Mitt the forum to do his spin.
Just what I thought. Did anyone think that Romney would be unprepared if Obama had brought up the 47% comment? I guarantee that Romney had a pre-planned little speech all ready to go. Obama simply didn’t give him a chance to use it.
So, when is the Romney wave function going to collapse so that we know what he actually believes? If his opinions were the famous cat, it would be alive, dead, sick, pregnant and scratching the couch all at the same time.
Very thoughtful of Mitt to bring it up himself instead, now. What a polite young man he is.
If he’d said this the day the video went public, maybe someone would have given a shit (although the left would have hammered him on it anyway). At this point it’s too late. He’s “correcting” himself in public weeks after he got blasted for making a bunch of statements in private - it’s hard to accept a very belated correction under those circumstances. I don’t know which campaign advisers told Romney he could pivot to the center starting in October, but they should be fired.
I don’t think a lot of people will recieve that message because all the talking heads are flogging Mitt’s debate performance. I’d like to see what he had prepared. But Obama should keep running those commercials as often as that 588-2300 Empire ad.
Heh, here’s what I said in the first 47% thread:
I felt pretty confident he’d disown the comments immediately. Waiting till 99% of the damage is already done is just bizarre. He gets the damage from the comments, and then gets to feed into his reputation as a flip-flopper by going back on statements he’s been standing by for weeks.
The Romney campaign is a weird scene.
I said that in the debate thread. Obama bringing it up would’ve been like a pitcher tossing a meatball to a batter looking to hit one over the fence.
I think the real question is: was his disavowal of his previous statements elegantly stated?
He was wrong to get caught on camera in private saying what he won’t acknowledge in public. That was definitely wrong.
Really, it just served to remind people that he said it. Yeah Mitt, let’s keep in the press longer. 
Especially after having said, once the tape came out, that the only problem was that he didn’t express himself elegantly, or something like that.
And to take your point a little further, it’s especially late for apologizing for having believed the wrong things until now.
If you’re changing what you say you stand for, just one month before the election…well, let me put it this way: isn’t it a bit much, expecting someone to vote for you on the basis of stands you’ve only held for one month, when you’ve been running for President for years? Shouldn’t I expect a candidate for President to have a fairly constant idea of what he’s about as a politician, at least within the confines of one campaign season?
Jeez.
And of course he didn’t admit to believing anything that was wrong. He said he misspoke. And if you were offended by Romney’s rather elaborate series of remarks about how you won’t take responsibility for your life, there’s no way you would believe he just used the wrong words.
Well, I hope he also apologized to those people who paid $50,000 a plate to hear him talk. I mean, for that kind of money he shouldn’t be wrong.
Well, it was a really good dinner! Pâté of proletariat, blood of the working class…
I took his statement as meaning that 47% of people would not vote for him no matter what. Surely he doesn’t really think all of those 47% pay no taxes, they just don’t owe anything on April 15th, or may get a refund from overpayment or something like EIC.
Regardless of what he really thinks, that’s what he said.
That’s kind of what I was thinking. My two questions for Romney would be:
It would be nice if we had a group of people paid to ask candidates questions like this, who might challenge them on why their position has changed rather than just reporting what they say from day to day.
Romney Apology Tour 2012