Romney's exit less than dignified.
BY World's Editorials Writers
Friday, November 16, 2012
11/16/12 at 3:46 AM
We knew that Mitt Romney would have some post-mortem thoughts following his defeat, but believed that he would do so with dignity. Sadly, we were wrong.
After running a lackluster campaign and being misled by some of his strategists, he lost to President Barack Obama convincingly.
Speaking with some of his biggest donors on Wednesday, Romney seemed to validate what many Americans came to believe after his ill-fated "47 percent" remark during the campaign. They considered him to be out of touch with the common person.
He told his donors that he lost because Obama showered voters with "gifts." It's not much of a stretch to understand that by "voters" he means blacks, Hispanics, women and young people.
Those "gifts," according to Romney consisted of keeping student loan rates low and extending dependent health insurance coverage to age 26.
The biggest bugaboo, of course, is health care. "You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you're now going to get free health care, particularly if you don't have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family in perpetuity. I mean this is huge," Romney said.
He also brought up the "free contraceptives" issue saying it was "very big with young college-age women."
Is that offensive enough for everyone? In truth, it was never "free contraceptives" but a part of health-care reform that mandated that non-religious institutions provide contraceptive coverage as part of their health care plans.
He said Obama's campaign, "focused on giving targeted groups a big gift - so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars."
He's right about that. The costs of health care and the other issues will be high and some way must be found to pay for them without wrecking the economy.
It was, however, also clear that the majority of Americans believed that Obama was the person to lead the country. We hoped Romney would be gracious in defeat.
Romney, unfortunately, sounds like someone who expected to get something he thought he deserved and is now whining because he didn't get it. We expected more. The majority of American voters deserved more.
Original Print Headline: Romney's exit
