Graphic Courtesy of mctcampus.com
If there were ever a gift to Saturday Night Live, it would be the 2012 election season.
On the episode featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the Weekend Update segment “What Are You Doing?” took aim at Obama as he brought attention to himself from Romney’s tailspin.
In one week, Romney managed to insult nearly half the country, then stand by those words, is suspected of using self-tanner during an interview with Univision, and finally his V.P. pick Paul Ryan is booed at the AARP.
To clarify, when speaking at a campaign fundraiser Mitt Romney said, “there are 47 percent who are with him [President Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe 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…and they will vote for this president no matter what…these are people who pay no income tax…and so my job is to not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
So again is the same question from Seth Myers: what are you doing?
When fact-checked at FactCheck and Politifact, the 47 percent number is indeed accurate. Yet, in some cases Romney was wrong. He led the fundraisers to believe these people will automatically vote Democrat, and this is false. That 47 percent number can be broken into two sub-groups; half of the people who do not pay taxes are simply too poor to have tax requirements and the other half are senior citizens and others who are receiving tax breaks. Romney leads Obama in the polls with Americans over 65 and Obama has the foothold in the lowest income brackets.
These last weeks leading up to the election are prime time to see what our candidates will be when in office. Romney’s gaffes are piling high as a candidate, both from the campaign trail and his trip overseas. During the overseas trip, he criticized security during the Olympics, leading to a verbal smack down later from the London mayor, potentially damaged already strenuous relations between America and Palestine by implying that Palestine’s poor economic conditions are a result of cultural influence and then broke with policy upheld in the U.S. for more than 60 years by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In an interview with ABC News after the tour, Romney said he would not go back and fix some of his rhetoric saying that he “tend[s] to tell people what I believe.”
The greatest gift to comedians, and the Obama election itself, is Mitt Romney. Sit back and let him win the election for you Mr. President.
Because if, as a candidate, Romney piles these verbal gaffes sky high, what’s to stop him from doing it as president and potentially damaging ties with our allies?
There is a finesse to be had in the art of speech, and in these tumultuous times, one must be a master at finesse and Romney may not quite be at that level.
