Romney's poor choice of words

Mitt Romney has gotten in trouble for saying: "I’m not concerned about the very poor." That sounds bad, and it was a gaffe for him to phrase it like that.

Here's the fuller statement, from a CNN interview the day after his win in Florida:

I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor — we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans right now who are struggling.

Romney later clarified, speaking to a group of reporters:

You’ve got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different. I’ve said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is gonna be devoted to helping middle income people, all right? We have a safety net for the poor in, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that. And if there are people that are falling through the cracks I want to fix that. Wealthy people are doing fine. But my focus in the campaign is on middle income people. Of course I’m concerned about all Americans — poor, wealthy, middle class, but the focus of my effort will be on middle income families who I think have been most hurt by the Obama economy.

Romney is right: his comment clearly wasn't intended to mean that he's uncaring toward the poor. What he was saying is that he does care about the poor (he said he cares about "Americans," which includes the poor), but he's relatively satisfied with the amount of assistance the poor already get from existing government programs.

Not only has Romney been saying this throughout the campaign, but Barack Obama in 2008 talked constantly about how his focus was on "the middle class." He even criticized John McCain for not using the phrase "middle class" in a debate. Obama would talk about the middle class without even mentioning the poor. He just assumed that the middle class should be the focus. I don't remember anyone in the media questioning Obama's focus back in 2008. But when Romney makes essentially the same point, while also being explicit about his reasoning in focusing on the middle class rather than the poor, he's depicted as heartless.

IN THE COMMENTS: Rcocean says:

Look, these guys aren't super-human. They're recorded on film/audio talking about all kinds of stuff, 2 or 3 hours a day. Could you talk for 2 hours a day on all kinds of topics, without somebody being able to make look bad? I couldn't.

As I've said before:

There's a vicious circle going on here. The media is ready to pounce on the slightest arguable misstep by candidates or people associated with them. This causes the candidates to be more and more cautious in everything they say and do, which causes them to be more and more phony. This, in turn, causes the media and the public to feel starved for any evidence that the candidates are real, fallible human beings, which causes them to pounce on the candidates' missteps, etc.