Mitt Romney has challenged us with one of those brain-teaser math problems, which I’ve never been much good at. But in the spirit of bi-partisanship, I’ll give it a try:
• Romney claims that because 47% of the American public receives financial assistance from the government, they will therefore vote for Obama.
• If we give him that 47% for the sake of argument, and add the 3% of our truly-disingenuous neighbors who bash the government while receiving government “entitlements” (which includes several of our Republican legislative candidates as well as at least three commissioners), that brings us up to 50% who, according to Romney’s formula, will also vote for Obama. A perfect tie, so far. Not good news for Democrats.
• But now, if we add to that sum the 1% of the excruciatingly-rich who wouldn’t have a pot to p… in (so to speak) if the rest of us hadn’t had massively bailed them out of the outhouse (so to speak) we now have a 51% majority who will vote for Obama, according to Romney’s formula. A clear win for Obama that not even the Supremes can touch this time.
Maybe I missed something, but according to my calculations, this adds up to the truism that Ted Kennedy came up with about Romney during Mitt’s ’84 challenge for Ted’s senate seat: that Mitt’s positions are so soft that if the election season were to go on for a couple more weeks he might end up voting for Ted.
In that case, I’m looking forward to this November’s elections when, using Romney’s and the Right’s own formula for debasing anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, honesty will finally prevail, which is something we can all agree would be a good thing.
Bill LaCroix
Victor