Another Romney stubbed a toe while tripping over the family money yesterday. This time it’s Ann:
Mitt Romney’s wife says she doesn’t consider herself to be wealthy. […]
“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing,” Mrs. Romney said. “It can be here today and gone tomorrow.”
Ann had a pretty pedestrian point to make (money isn’t everything) and a personal story (she has MS) that would make it powerful, but like her husband, she can’t even trot out a well-rehearsed answer on Fox News. Money isn’t everything, but if you have a lot of it, you can’t talk about it until you acknowledge that having it is better than the alternative. Obama has the “I’m fortunate that I’m rich” lead-in down to a science, and the Romneys would do well to emulate him when they talk about their quarter billion in cash.
Speaking of the Romney millions, the bigger issue with their money is that it’s going to keep people from donating to their campaign. Despite the presence of SuperPACs funded by his friends, Mitt will still want to have his own campaign funds, but he’s terrible at attracting small donors. By the time the general rolls around, his rich friends will have maxed out what they can donate directly, and Mitt will probably have to loan his campaign another $40 or more million that he’ll never see again. He hasn’t done it yet, but why the hell would an wage-earning Real American want to send a few bucks to Mitt when Romney himself won’t even take a chance on his campaign?
AxelFoley
SMDH
RSA
Being rich in spirit doesn’t help at the end of the month when you’re paying bills, which is also an interesting thing.
But I can see this as being part of Romney’s economic plan. “Wouldn’t you rather be rich in spirit than rich with money? Romney 2012.”
MariedeGourany
Money is the only reason he’s in this race.
MikeJ
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/05/438230/romney-in-my-administration-coal-will-not-be-a-four-letter-word/
I know Benjamin Franklin was really into spelling reform. I guess Mitt wants to follow in his footsteps.
Patricia Kayden
The rightwing SuperPacs will advertise on his behalf so I’m not understanding why he needs his own funds?
MattMinus
If that poor in spirit thing wasn’t already in the beatitudes, the 1% would have to pay to have it added. Every rich holy roller uses it as the reason why they don’t have to follow Jesus’ admonition to give up everything you have. He only meant give up your stuff until you are poor in spirit. This is cool, because you can totally be poor in spirit from the pool of your La Jolla vacation home. In fact, it’s the crappy Mexicans who are all rich in spirit and shit that are the real plutocrats!
Odie Hugh Manatee
Poor in spirit?! Awww, I bet she can be hungry and jobless in spirit too! Maybe even homeless in spirit? She can afford to say that she’s “poor in spirit”, the poor can’t.
They’re just poor and she will never be able to relate to that, no matter how hard she tries.
Regarding Mitt’s tight wallet: If a businessman thinks something is a bad investment then he won’t put a dime into it.
Mitt knows that he’s a poor investment but he’s more than happy to risk the money of others.
LittlePig
Geez Louise, does being Mormon require its own dialect?
(/rhetorical only. Plenty of not-so-bright sociopaths in any and non religions)
Shawn in ShowMe
Behind every great robot …
Jeff Spender
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s so he can fund his actual campaign operations. You know, catering, busing, GOTV efforts, staffing, and the like. He can’t use PAC monies to do that.
Amir Khalid
A quarter bil to your name is still not wealthy? That’s the Romney common touch for you. Again and again Romney comes off like Thurston Howell III, and now his missus is doing it too. Why haven’t the alarm bells gone off in the Romney campaign over this? Someone should have sat them down by now to coach them on talking about the wealth thing.
Violet
This is such a bizarre sentence. So she considers herself poor in spirit? Is she not doing enough of her Mormon church stuff so she’s not holy enough? Or she actually doesn’t consider herself wealthy in the traditional way?
Either way, it’s not a good reflection on her. And most people will hear it as the second and chalk it up to another out of touch Romney moment.
jayackroyd
I always like to note that when candidates lend their campaigns money, people making contributions after the campaign is over are putting money directly into the elected official’s bank account.
This is not a good thing.
JPL
When Mrs. Obama said she’d never been prouder of America, the repubs jumped all over that statement. Her entire speech was ignored. Although, Romney’s wealth will be an issue, hopefully it’s not because of this statement.
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
So, what role will kol have in a Romney administration energy policy?
MattF
It does open a window on how the wealthy console one another about the bad things that 99 percent of the world say about them. Also, that business about the camel and the eye of a needle.
harlana
“Obama has the “I’m fortunate that I’m rich” lead-in down to a science”
I don’t know Romney’s net worth vs. Obama’s but I imagine there is a sizable disparity there. But, you see, Obama is an “elite.” So, you know, shut up.
harlana
@Violet:
Zactly my first reaction – apparently, she is admitting she is an abject failure as a Mormon which bears further scrutiny and the media will completely ignore it.
Jeff Spender
I have a friend that would talk about hedonic adaptation and how, to Ann Romney, it doesn’t feel like they’re rich because they can’t buy that 5th ivory backscratcher.
Humans are funny like that.
Cat Lady
From the article:
The one and only true thing he’s said. I wonder why he didn’t say no.
BO_Bill
If President Obama was a ‘community organizer’ kinda making it by, and then a Senator for two years at $160,000 per year, and then a President for three years at $400,000 per year, at a tax rate of ~30%, then his net income would have been 0.7*((2)(160,000) + (3)(400,000)) = $1,060,000.
Now we know that Barry likes to live in mansions, and that Michelle loves vacations, and $50,000 clothing runs, and French fries, so I can pretty much guarantee that they have blown through twice this.
So someone please explain to me who is paying Barry.
Montysano
Are there no campaign advisers? Are there no PR flacks?
Egg Berry
@BO_Bill: Perhaps you’ve read his books, or know that his wife was working as a lawyer, asshole.
dmsilev
@BO_Bill: You forgot that (a) Michelle Obama spent many years working as a lawyer, culminating as a VP for the University of Chicago Hospital and (b) that Barack Obama has written a couple of best-selling books which have earned millions in royalties.
Oh, and fuck off and die. Again.
Keith G
Individuals who successfully run for president are not common or even (techincally) normal. Though very exceptional, both Clinton and Obama were/are “men of the people” until just before their first presidential campaigns. Not so the Republicans. Nixon’s simple early life left it’s mark. Reagan and Eisenhower, individually, as young men joined the two branches of American nobility: Hollywood and the military.
American politics is becoming a gated community for an financial elite. Romney is just noteworthy because he is so insufferably bad at pretending to be otherwise. He would have been better off if his shtick was based on a Kennedyesque noblesse oblige.
BO_Bill
Are you referring to Michelle’s job in Chicago that was bestowed upon her after Barry was put into the Senate, the ‘diversity consultant’ job the system didn’t deem necessary to fill after she left?
harlana
@BO_Bill:
to quote Dr. Evil:
ONE MIIILION DOLLARS!
((ensuing laughter))
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Fucking Lord, I want these people to DIAF!
We managed to finally scrape together enough money to pay the rent—today, on the 5th. It’s amusing that the people who had to cosign for us to get this apartment when we lost the house are the people who have to borrow money from us and can’t pay it back in time to cover the rent. This is what life in the bottom 99% is like nowadays—and we’re better off than untold millions.
How anybody who doesn’t have a quarter gig in the bank could possibly vote for Chatsworth Osborne Jr. to determine the thrust of government policy for the next 4 years—you know where that thrust is going to go, don’t you?
gnomedad
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall have tax cuts.
amk
@BO_Bill: Would love to see your face on nov 6th night when your ass starts burning from all the a.. f..king you teabaggers are gonna get.
Promise us that you will post us a pic of yourself enjoying that excruciating moment, bill. You owe us at least that much with all your pathetic trolling in every blog.
forked tongue
Shut your pie hole, Bill. (Pie hole, get it?)
Chyron HR
@BO_Bill:
Bill, the official position of the Republican party is that women who use birth control should be required by law to film themselves having sex and post the videos online for everyone to watch.
You’re REALLY going to have to step up your game if you want your fake craziness to top the real thing.
JGabriel
What’s the problem here? I agree with Ann: the Romney’s spiritually impoverished.
.
JasonF
President Obama was also an Illinois State Senator and a professor at the University of Chicago law school for roughly a decade prior to his election to the U.S. Senate.
BO_Bill
Let it be known for the record that I came very close to voting for Barry before. I think he is doing a fantastic job, and the ‘authoring’ of that self-esteem book for dumb children while sitting as wartime POTUS was a really nice touch. Even the judeo-media knew enough to keep that one quiet.
So I’m kind of rooting for Barry.
Go Barry Go.
JGabriel
@BO_Bill:
As Egg Berry notes above, Michelle is a lawyer, and Obama has written a couple of books that made the bestsellers lists. The books alone put their net worth over 10 million.
You’ll have to try harder, BOB. Not loopy enough.
.
geg6
@BO_Bill:
I don’t know why I bother with you, but Michelle was an associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin and met Barack Obama when he was a summer associate there and she was assigned as his mentor. This was back in the late 80s, early 90s (not sure of exact date). She’s worked for the Chicago city government, non-profit organizations, in student services for the University of Chicago, and as a VP for the University of Chicago Hospitals. She made more money than her husband for their entire marriage until he became a best selling author. Her CV makes yours look like that of a kindergarten child. Actually, that’s insulting to kindergarten children.
eastriver
Hey, Body Odor Billo, if you’re still trolling around, which I’m sure you are, why don’t you take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to explain to us libtards exactly what your implying. Barry is getting his money from where? You seem to be implying something, but I’m just too damn thick to follow. Did he steal it? Find a pot of gold? What? Please enlighten us.
Frank
@BO_Bill:
Somehow I don’t think you were equally “concerned” when we had a white President about what they spent money on. Who do you think paid for Bush when he spent a third of his presidency on vacation! You got it, the taxpayers.
By the way, it is PRESIDENT Obama.
amk
@BO_Bill: judeo-media ? rotflamo.
BO_Bill
Barry, in my opinion, is an agent of the people who directed him to shut up and stop writing anything ever again after he wrote that stupid anti-war piece with the noun-verb errors as an under-grad at Columbia.
You will note that within one week of McCain pulling ahead in the last election, somebody took $500 billion out of the money market, triggering a panic. Then some guy named ‘Geithner’, refused to bail out Goldman Sachs’ competitor Lehman, and Goldman took over Wall Street, the economy tanked, and Barry won, appointing Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, who then appointed Mark Patterson, who just happened to be Goldman Sachs’ lobbyist, as his Chief of Staff.
Barry gets around $6 million out of the deal, Rahm got $16 million, and the ‘Bankers’ will reap untold billions. Cole gets rent and some basic food stuffs. The rest of us lose. Hope this helps.
Cacti
Lady Romney often contemplates how non-wealthy she feels when saddled up on one of her $100,000 dressage horses.
rikyrah
I have to say it..
heifer, please.
she’s as ridiculous as her husband.
she is LITERALLY
Miss Ann
to the nth degree.
eastriver
No, still not clear, Billo. Sorry, I’m in LA on work this week, and it’s dang early out here. (rubbing sleep from libtard eyes) How exactly did Barry get his $6m? You need to spell this stuff out for us ‘tards. We aren’t as well-informed as you. Obviously.
eastriver
No, still not clear, Billo. Sorry, I’m in LA on work this week, and it’s dang early out here. (rubbing sleep from libtard eyes) How exactly did Barry get his $6m? You need to spell this stuff out for us ‘tards. We aren’t as well-informed as you. Obviously.
Cacti
The actual question Lady Romney was answering was:
“Are you oblivious, given your wealth, to the everyday concerns of average folks?”
Her answer might as well have been:
“Does Howdy Doody have a wooden dick?”
ericblair
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
This whole “rich in spirit” dodge rubs people seriously the wrong way. Yep, we’re all so rich in spirit that we just have to tell our landlords and the grocery stores how rich we are in spirit and presto, the bills are paid. It’s pretty easy to not be concerned about money when you have a shitload of it, but still a lot of 1%ers can’t manage it.
@Amir Khalid:
I always thought he’d be better off going full JR Ewing: “I’m filthy rich, I’m proud of it, I’ll help you be rich too, and I’ll make sure your money doesn’t get wasted in the wrong places on the wrong people!” Instead, we got this false populist country club asshole crap where you constantly feel like he’s trying to have a conversation with the help.
Bex
@BO_Bill: Been going through your collection of chain emails again, B_OB?
Linda Featheringill
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Congratulations on finding the rent money. I understand. Really I do.
Live long and prosper.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Try not having any.
If there’s one statement that makes me turn purple with rage, this is it.
Cacti
The difference between the two is that Barack Obama has a living memory of what it is like to be poor.
Lord Mittens of Cranbrook has been fabulously wealthy since the moment the Obstetrician slapped his butt and he drew his first breath.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Linda Featheringill:
Thanks—I’ve calmed down a little now. Do you think Mitt could ever imagine how the first of March every year is a pain in the ass for so many people because there was only ten (or eleven in a leap year) work days in the second half of February? To ask the question is to answer it….
muddy
I know a woman who has money from investments, not money saved up from decades of work or whatever, it just comes. She says she does not care about the money, it doesn’t mean anything to her, etc. I say if you care so little for it, then you may as well give a lot of it away. Well, that’s never on.
She can never understand that the only ones who don’t care about money are the ones that have so much they never have to think about it.
jim filyaw
i had a friend who had failed in merchandizing before going to law school. as a lawyer, he was a natural and by the time he died, a highly regarded trial lawyer. he used to tell me, “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Believe me, rich is better.”
Nemesis
Shorter Mrs Mittbot,
“You people smell icky.”
Nemesis
@eastriver:
Uhmm, “Barry” got his money by writing a book. Something lots of people do. Its called work.
In fact, during his 2007-2008 campaign, candidate Obama finally paid off his school loans, so he is a recent addition to the millionaire role.
What a nasty way to get wealth, right? Inheriting is so much cleaner.
Palli
@RSA:
“We can be poor in spirit” Yes, the Romneys can and are!
The last thing American needs now is a president that is so rich that their wife doesn’t know it!
gwangung
@BO_Bill: No, we’re referring to her employment before that, where we did the homework that you obviously didn’t.
A C-. You can do better.
Mnemosyne
Somebody else posted this link from Cracked yesterday, and I think this is another good spot for it:
6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying
Needless to say, I think that between the two of them, the Romneys have now hit “bingo!”
Origuy
@Nemesis: I think eastriver was trying to get BoB to say where he thought the Obamas got their money improperly, since he doesn’t seem to think that the books and the teaching job and the law firm account for it.
Ann Romney has multiple sclerosis, which is a terrible thing and all of their money can’t cure it. However, they can afford the best treatments available; she doesn’t have to do household chores when it flairs up or struggle to get onto a bus in a wheelchair. Poor people with disabilities do.
PurpleGirl
Mrs. Romney should really think hard and long about what it’s like to be poor and have MS. She doesn’t have to worry about a lot of things others must: maybe her case isn’t so severe so she may not be at risk for the worst complication, she has the best health care his money can buy, and she can buy services that make her life easier.
But I have friends who have MS or whose relatives have it or have died from it’s complications. It’s a big frakkinbg deal for them: the medications are expensive, it restricts what they can do.
So she feels spiritually poor and she doesn’t feel that she’s wealthy. Listen lady, let’s trade places. I can guarantee you, I’d know how to use that money to feel better spiritually and help people.
Rafer Janders
@ericblair:
I always thought he’d be better off going full JR Ewing: “I’m filthy rich, I’m proud of it, I’ll help you be rich too, and I’ll make sure your money doesn’t get wasted in the wrong places on the wrong people!” Instead, we got this false populist country club asshole crap where you constantly feel like he’s trying to have a conversation with the help.
It’s the Trump approach, and it can work. Trump never downplays his wealth — he plays it up, at every opportunity. He’d loud and brash and vulgar. But precisely because he’s so upfront about it, Trump’s wealth is never really a source of resentment; rather, it only serves to augment his popularity. You can do anything as long as you really own it.
shortstop
This is such a basic, basic point. Americans in general do not fault people for being rich; they fault them for not understanding or caring what the lives of non-rich people are like. They fault them for actively working to make non-rich people’s lives and opportunities worse.
In all this time, after a failed Senate campaign against a wealthy guy who had no trouble discussing his wealth, a governorship, and six years (!) of full-time campaigning for the presidency, the Romneys have been unable even to acknowledge the point that they’re vastly wealthy — they apparently think that to do so is to concede something. And they wonder why literally no one trusts them!
JoyfulA
@PurpleGirl: I have a poor friend with MS, too. Her health insurance is so expensive, she can’t afford the medications her health insurance doesn’t cover. She can’t get a better job that would come with group health insurance because companies find ways of not hiring the gimpy (her term) despite the ADA.
IrishGirl
The Romneys absolutely slay me (to borrow a turn of phrase from my mother). Does anyone else remember a few weeks ago when Romney said he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Well, NPR did a story on the income taxes he didn’t want to release and how his father, when he ran for President, released 12 years worth. They showed that one year George Romney had half a million dollars in investments alone–ALONE. What kind of crazy land does Romney live in that $500,000 in investments (not to mention all the other sources of income and privilege his father’s political position afforded) does not constitute a “silver spoon”?! I would like to take that supposedly non-existent spoon and tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Rafer Janders
@IrishGirl:
They showed that one year George Romney had half a million dollars in investments alone—ALONE. What kind of crazy land does Romney live in that $500,000 in investments (not to mention all the other sources of income and privilege his father’s political position afforded) does not constitute a “silver spoon”?!
And $500,000 in the mid-1960s is about $5,000,000 in today’s dollars.
IrishGirl
@BO_Bill: OMFG, I can’t stop laughing….”Cole gets rent and some basic food stuffs.”
It used to be Soros sending us liberal bloggers checks and now it’s become Pres. Obama….oh, Bill, your aluminum foil hat theories are so amusing!
IrishGirl
@Origuy: Not just poor people…I personally know three people with MS who struggle through every day, working full time jobs, raising families and trying to live a normal life. Not having to work 50 hours a week would be much better for someone struggling with such a deadly illness. Mrs. Romney has no f*cking idea how lucky she is.
IrishGirl
@Rafer Janders: I didn’t even think of that! Good point.
WereBear
@IrishGirl: The First Lady’s father was one of them.
EJ
But the problem is that guys like Romney don’t believe that their wealth is due to good fortune. It’s a just reward for their hard work and moral superiority to the mass of commoners.
Wes
Who?
…I mean, her?