Mitt Romney has an empathy problem. Regardless of whether he's actually an empathetic guy, Mr. Romney remains the son of a wealthy man who then went out and made another fortune buying companies and firing people. He's still the guy who says that questions about income inequality amount to the sin of envy, he's still the guy who manages to say the words "I like to be able to fire people," he's still the guy who offers up a $10,000 bet to prove his point. He's still the guy who drove to Canada with the family dog in a kennel on top of the car and who responded to evidence of the family dog's distress by stopping at a car wash to rinse it away.
In a time of great economic distress, that's a problem for a presidential candidate.
Last night on the show, Steve Kornacki of Salon talked about Mr. Romney's empathy problem and the photo Salon posted yesterday -- they took it for Mr. Romney getting a shoeshine, when in fact he's getting wanded by security. Today, Steve asks whether a photo like this, of Mr. Romney seated and smiling in his nice suit while a uniformed worker bee toils away, would be such a problem for a different kind of candidate:
[U]nlike Gingrich and the rest of the GOP field, Romney embodies the super-wealthy/corporate-type that Democrats like to accuse Republicans of coddling – making it much harder for him to credibly reject the charge. A Republican nominee running on the same platform but lacking Romney’s aristocratic bearing could more credibly reassure voters that he’s not doing the bidding of plutocrats.
So no, that's not Mitt Romney getting a shoeshine on that tarmac. It's just a candidate who's wide open to the charge that he's too rich and too invested in being rich to understand your life. Look for the White House to keep capitalizing on that with more talk about income inequality.
(Last night: The TRMS dogs/Romney segment)
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Awesome fact-checking, Laura et. all! (and without asking your audience if you should do so, too!)
Ha!
The charter is "Direct Air" I see. I have flown on Direct Air. I was not searched, scanned, folded, torn, mutilated or spindled prior to boarding. Makes me wonder if this was not another joke picture like the moneybags picture. If so, Mittens needs a bit of work in that department, like as in "how will this look later?"
Direct Air btw has both a website and a wikipedia entry.
..."RECTAIR" snicker... :)
Still.....who gets offered a chair while they're being wanded....????
Evil conservatives, I'm sure the chair is made of bones from Public Union workers too. I hope people are smart enough to look into the "I like to fire people" in it's entirety instead of the media spinning that is going on, any sane person listening to it would not have an issue with it, but you know agendas and all.
This is the question I want answered!!! Mitt supporters are quick to point out that this is not a shoeshine, but the last time I was in the airport, I had to wait in a long line and REMOVE my shoes. Who gets this kind of service? Not the 99%.
Wonder how many of the 99% get haircuts on the tarmac? This was pre-9/11, but this was not a shoe shine either. Clinton got a haircut on the runway.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/21/us/haircut-grounded-clinton-while-the-price-took-off.html
Aw, c'mon folks. All this uproar about Mitt being part of the 1%. (Actually, he's part of the .01%.) Mitt's just like you or me. If you or me live in several 53-room mansions and can buy a Mercedes from one week's net earnings.
Yes, how dare he be successful!
Eric, how many of the 99% lives in the White House? Your linked article talks about a sitting US president. Is that a fair comparison you think?
So you have to part of the 99% to be in the White House? That's the new criteria?
Yeah, the article was about Clinton, but it's the same thing (worse actually), people are complaining about.
Lets stop this 99% silliness with Presidents. None of our Presidents including the current one are part of the 99%. Both Democrat and Republican Senators and Presidents are part of the 1% as well as most house reps. It doesn't make a bit of difference which party the President comes from. Money from the 1% seeks the leading contenders of both parties. Obama will raise $1 billion for his reelection. Obama has received more in contributions from Bain Capital than Romney. Obama's former biggest money hauler - Jon Corzine was a former head of Goldman Sachs, Democrat Senator and Governor of New Jersey and will soon go to jail for his role in misappropriating billions of clients dollars.
It just looks so natural for him...I hope he wins for the Republicans - I would like the country to continue having that debate.
if you rarely dish out any compassion for people it shows. i like how he said he was worried he might get a "pink slip", the last time i heard people speak of anything that was a "pink slip" it was fast and the furious, and before that it was in elementary school... folks at work dont go, oh darn i might get a pink slip for that... no you go, oh they might fire me for that, or yeah I almost got fired today at work etc...
While this is a trivial point, I do agree. I thought the same thing - no one says "pink slip."
When I was living in California, the pink slip was what you needed when you bought a car from someone. The vehicle title was pink.
It still is Eileen.
Yeah, but if he had to go through TSA like 'regular folk' there would be a whole lotta "I like to fire people" goin on.
Where is the line people normally have to stand in for security checks?
You get to bypass the line when you're flying in a private and/or corporate jet. Note he also doesn't need to take his shoes OFF like we commoners do.
Wonder if the elites do that when they board Air Force One?
since when did they start wand you at a private terminal getting on your private jet.
staged maybe.
Yeah, probably staged. But why? I'm fairly certain you don't have to go through security on a private jet too.
It was impressive last night to see you correct the story in the same broadcast. Well done. And +1 to CB, the reason Romney looks so relaxed is that he is enjoying his quick security check before boarding a private jet. No lines, no full body scans, heck... looks like he didn't even have to take off his shoes. I would love to know how often in the last 10 years Mitt has flown commercial.
But the REAL question is WHY is he being scanned by security once he's obviously already inside the secure perimeter of the airport. He's ON THE TARMAC.
This photo has a certain stench about it!
well at lease once, as i forgot her name but she was a doctor maybe. also she was on Rachel show. talking about her very brief encounter with Willard Mitt Job Killer.
Having both bought shoeshines and shined shoes for money, both sides of the deal seemed straight forward and honorable to me. While I agree that Romney is an insensitive twit, Street vendors and shoeshine men are Iconic in their representation of honest productive work and business.
So he can't even claim to have created any shoeshine jobs?
Ummm....
This guy is ALREADY inside the secure perimeter of the airport. If someone is being 'wanded' for security at that point, IT'S TOO LATE!!!!
Whatever this photo is, it's bogus and likely staged (by someone not so smart)!!!
I travel weekly. I still have to stand in long lines bare-footed.
I am going to defend his honor. Regardless of my personal political leanings. We have proof that Mitt actually flies coach. In December he was my husband's seat mate on a US Airways flight from Phoenix to San Diego. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150452489590854&set=a.26703545853.34543.786120853&type=3&theater
Probably because he was paying for it instead of getting it comped by a Super-PAC. Either way, I'm sure he wrote it off on his non-taxes.
@Harold--the problem would not be with getting a shoeshine per se, but with getting one on the tarmac, probably holding up other flights by doing so...as with the flap about some one--Clinton maybe--getting a haircut in the private plane, delaying take off and making other flights wait because of it. At least that's my take.Rachel, one of the many reasons I love and respect your show is that you have no problem correcting yourself (or your guests for that matter) and you always set the record straight, on the air. For all the talk about how MSNBC is just the left wing version of FOX, this one simple thing is enough to discredit that argument. It makes you and your broadcasts trustworthy. I thank you for that.
So he's able to wait till he gets to his private plane, is given a chair to sit in, and then gets to smile and chat with the "security officer" who wands his shoes, while the rest of the traveling public has to remove their shoes while standing in a long line with no chairs in sight, put them in a plastic box, walk barefoot past snarling guards, and then collect all their belongings at the end of a very public line? Whether this was a shoe shine or a private shoe wanding, it still stinks, and just shows how out of touch Mr. Romney is with the way the rest of us live our lives!
My big problem is the dog on top of the car story only because Romney's reaction to an animal in distress (insert citizens of the U.S.) was to hose him down and march on. It highlights his priorities, my baggage goes in the vehicle, my dog who depends on me for everything gets put on top of the car in a crate. One thing I think Romney lacks is Common Sense and Empathy, as evidenced by this story. Wouldn't it have made more sense to put the dog in the car and strap the luggage, etc. to the roof?
Could you imagine the response if the Obamas did that to their dog Bo?
He's getting on a private plane - sitting like that to get through security doesn't make sense. Wouldn't his entourage be with him if he was getting a security check? Here's an account of lack of security on a private flight
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/private-plane-public-menace/8335/
Now I know that's a smaller plane but still. This makes as much sense as the cops in ET holding walkie-talkies.
Probably a staged photo to be used at some point in the campaign is why everyone else is cleared from the photo.
I for one do not "envy" those who lack any humanity. I would rather live in the gutter with the rats than to be so egotistical as to believe others envy me.
"Vanity I know thy name..."
Why would he have to be wanded to get onto a private plane? And as someone upthread noted, why is he getting wanded when he's already well inside of the security perimeter?
Even though I wouldn't vote for him on a $10,000 bet, I don't think that he needs to be wanded at all. It's a waste of time, we all know who he is.
I imagine it all has to do with that steel plate in his head or the lead in his rear.
"Goodness gracious, you're not an illegal, are you?"
The Republicans, whenever it was advantageous, claim Dems are elitist. This election the shoe is on the other foot so to speak. Romney had everything handed to him while Obama had to work to get ahead. This undercuts the Republican message about wanting everyone to have an opportunity and the Republicans know best how to do it. Frank Luntz is going to be working overtime to fix the optics of this election.
Mike - Once again you've made the most salient point of all.
If it were a shoe-shine, one would be compelled to ask if it was because he tied his dog's carrier to the roof of the plane...
thank you, thank you, thank you for focusing on the underlying point about the "seamus on the roof" story. it's not just romney, it's his whole family. they LAUGH about this story, as if it's a cute family story.
while growing up, my family too had a similar station wagon, but loaded with 8 kids. the luggage went on the roof in a home-made luggage carrier that was streamlined and covered the entire roof of the car. we didn't have a dog at the time, but if we did, you can be damn sure he would have been inside the car with the rest of us.