ATLANTA — Gov. Mitt Romney pushed back Wednesday against claims that he’s written off half of the country and said he, not President Barack Obama, can better improve the lot of poor Americans.
“The question of this campaign is not who cares about the poor and middle class. I do, he does,” Romney said, his voice rising. “The question is who can help the poor and middle class. I can, he can’t. He couldn’t in four years.”
In a 23-minute speech at a fundraiser at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta, the Republican presidential hopeful several times answered criticism that has arisen from a video shot in May. The video, taken at a Florida fundraiser, was recorded secretly and released this week by Mother Jones magazine.
In the video, Romney said 47 percent of the nation’s residents pay no net income taxes, support Obama and “believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. ... My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
On Wednesday in Atlanta, Romney referred to the downtrodden often, highlighting the perceived failures of Obama’s economic policy and aiming to show empathy for their plight.
“This is going to be an election of a very stark choice,” Romney said. “The question is going to be who is better equipped and has better direction in mind to help the people of America who so badly need help. We have a lot of people in trouble.”
Romney also referred to a video of Obama that is now making the rounds. The Obama video, from 1998, shows the then-Illinois state senator saying he approves of some “redistribution.” Romney and Republicans have said Obama meant redistributing wealth, which they say is akin to socialism. Obama’s campaign said his fuller remarks show that he meant redistributing government funds among agencies.
“He really believes in what I’ll call a government-centered society,” Romney said. “There are some people who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others, we’ll all be better off. It’s called redistribution. A tape came out a couple days ago of the president saying yes, he believes in redistribution. I don’t.”
He wrote in an essay published Wednesday in USA Today that under Obama, “we have a stagnant economy that fosters government dependency. Instead of creating a web of dependency, I will pursue policies that grow our economy and lift Americans out of poverty.”
If elected, Romney said, he would fix America’s economy by doubling federal permits to drill for oil and gas, repealing the health-care overhaul Obama championed and replace it with something else, standing up to China on trade issues and slashing the federal deficit.
Romney was introduced at the Atlanta event by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, and the crowd included other top Republicans: state House Speaker David Ralston, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Attorney General Sam Olens. Only Olens endorsed Romney in the primary. Deal was cochairman of Newt Gingrich’s campaign, and Cagle originally endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Ralston did not endorse a primary candidate.
Outside the Marriott, eight protesters from MoveOn.org and USAction, two liberal groups angry with Romney’s economic policies, said they had a problem with those plans.
Lydia Maestas of Atlanta said she is “honestly appalled by his statements. It just shows he believes it. He just doesn’t get it. We’re all retired. We worked all our lives and we’re part of the 47 percent, and we’re not asking for handouts.”
Later Wednesday, Romney told a Hispanic audience at a forum sponsored by the Univision television network at the University of Miami in Florida that his campaign is “about the 100 percent” of Americans and is “focused on people who need help.”
“I have a record,” he said. “I’ve demonstrated my capacity to help the 100 percent when I was governor.”
He also softened his rhetoric on immigration during the forum, downplaying a key element of his plan for handling illegal aliens.
“We’re not going to round up people around the country and deport them,” Romney said. “We need to provide a long-term solution.”
He also attacked Obama for failing to pursue comprehensive immigration legislation during his time in office.
“He never tried to fix the immigration system,” Romney said. “I will actually reform the immigration system and make it work for the people of America.”
Obama’s Democratic allies Wednesday intensified their criticism of Romney over the videotaped comments. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada opened the chamber’s proceedings by chastising Romney, saying, “This rare look at the real Mitt Romney proves one thing: that he is completely out of touch with average Americans.”
Obama, in an appearance Tuesday on CBS’ The Late Show with David Letterman, rejected the idea that Americans oppose government assistance. There’s “nothing wrong” with giving “a helping hand,” he said, adding that Americans don’t want a president who is “writing off a big chunk of the country.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada distanced himself Wednesday from Romney’s comments.
Democrat Shelley Berkley, who presents a strong challenge to Heller’s re-election bid, said Heller and Romney read from the same script when it comes to the middle class.
“I do believe the federal government has certain responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is building bridges and roads, and national defense,” Heller said Wednesday in Washington. “I also believe in a safety net for individuals who need the help, so that’s why I would respectfully disagree with the comments that [Romney] made.”
Heller pointed out that his mother was a school cafeteria cook, so he has a “different view of the world” than Romney does.
Like other Republicans grappling with the political fallout seven weeks out from Election Day, Heller sought to change the subject to the Obama tape.
“If I work hard in this country, will I be rewarded? This president says, ‘No, you won’t be rewarded. You’re going to have to give that to someone else,’” Heller said. “That’s the issue. That’s what everybody is talking about in Nevada.”
Massachusetts Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who is running for re-election in a close race against Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard University professor, also distanced himself from Romney’s remarks, telling The Hill newspaper: “That’s not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.”
Other conservatives, meanwhile, criticized the magazine that first posted Romney’s comments online, saying a part of his speech was missing.
Late Tuesday, some observers asked why about two minutes were missing from the videos posted by Mother Jones. On conservative news and opinion website The Blaze, Benny Johnson posted an edit of the video clips that highlighted a gap in the recordings and argued that “the ‘uncut’ videos leave out a critical portion of the speech.”
The editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com, Joel Pollak, took the point a step further and warned that “there is new reason to suspect manipulation” of Mother Jones’ video.
Also Wednesday, a superpolitical-action committee supporting Obama released the first television advertisement using Romney’s words from the fundraiser.
The ad from Priorities USA Action closes with a narrator saying Romney will never convince middle-class voters that he’s on their side.
The ad is part of a $30 million project by Priorities that focuses on how it believes Romney’s proposals would hurt the middle class. The ad will run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Information for this article was contributed by Aaron Gould Sheinin of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; by Kevin Freking and staff members of The Associated Press; by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Margaret Talev, Kathleen Hunter, Lisa Lerer and Richard Rubin of Bloomberg News; by Michael Roston of The New York Times; and by Marc Caputo and Patricia Mazzei of The Miami Herald.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/20/2012