Top 4 Insensitive Remarks Romney Made on Campaign Trail

While campaigning for president, Mitt Romney made a series of remarks that alienated the working class, women and Latinos.

During his 2012 presidential campaign , Mitt Romney made a number of statements that made him look out of touch with the general public. The remarks indicated that Romney didn’t empathize with the working class and suggested that he was disconnected from women and Hispanics. Here are four of the most insensitive remarks Romney made while campaigning.

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At a private fundraiser in May 2012, Romney dismissed Americans who don’t pay income taxes. An event attendee secretly recorded Romney describing such Americans as irresponsible, government-dependent and, thus, fans of Barack Obama. “There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who 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,” Romney said. “... My job is not to worry about those people.”

Romney rubbed women the wrong way when he refused to stand up for reproductive rights and endorse equal pay for women. He made things worse when he discussed his efforts as Massachusetts governor to find qualified women to serve on his cabinet. Speaking at a debate on Oct. 16, 2012, Romney said, “I went to a number of women’s groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” Romney was ridiculed for the remark, as it reduced women to “binders” rather than human beings.

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After winning the Florida primary in January 2012, Romney remarked on CNN that he was in the presidential race because he cares about Americans. He then seemed to contradict himself when he said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.” Although he also said he wasn’t concerned about the rich, much of the public thought his remarks about the poor sounded callous. 

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Discussing immigration reform in January 2012, Romney remarked, “The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.” For Latinos and other immigrants who wanted a serious answer to immigration reform, this remark didn’t cut it, as it sidestepped the issue entirely. No wonder Obama won 71 percent of Latino voters on Election Day.

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