With some 11 per cent of Americans jobless or having given up looking for work
three years after the country emerged from recession, Mr Romney’s remark was
deemed unhelpful to his attempts to prove he felt voters’ pain.
After winning the Florida primary, Mr Romney then said in an interview: “I’m
not concerned about the very poor”. While he meant that the worst-off
in society were protected by a safety net, the comment provided an open goal
to Democrats who claim a Romney presidency would serve America’s richest.
However, Mr Romney denied that his tortured relationship with language was
linked to the implosion of his father George’s 1968 presidential campaign
following a similar blunder. Mr Romney Sr. said on television that he
previously supported the war in Vietnam after being “brainwashed”
by US officials.
Mr Romney also disclosed in the interview, which was published in the Wall
Street Journal, that he has been keeping a campaign diary on his beloved
iPad, initially recording voice entries but latterly typing them on an
attached keyboard.
The former Massachusetts governor currently trails Mr Obama by an average of
1.6 percentage points, according to an aggregate of national polls by
RealClearPolitics. However he insisted that he would not be devastated by
defeat in November. “This for me is not my life, meaning I don’t have
to win an election to feel good about myself,” he said.
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