MSNBC’s Ed Schultz solved a 2012 election mystery today, by featuring the man who shot the infamous Willard Mitt Romney “47% video” in a one-on-one interview. The amateur filmmaker, Scott Prouty, a bartender at the $50,000 per plate private fundraising event where Romney spoke last May, told Schultz that he originally shot the video just to have a souvenir of the event, but Prouty quickly realized that Romney’s divisive remarks made his tape political dynamite.
Among the controversial highlights of Romney’s remarks captured on video by Scott Prouty were:
- On the 47%:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, 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. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.... [M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
- On peace between Israel and the Palestinians, where a two-state solution has been official U.S. policy for decades:
[S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.
- On a brutal China sweatshop that Romney visited with the purpose of purchasing for Bain Capital, Romney appeared either to believe the Chinese officials' story that the factory had a barbed wire fence around it to keep others out rather than keeping the workers in, or, at minimum, Romney was directly aware of the conditions at the factory and purchased it anyway.
Reinforcing existing narrative about Romney
Romney’s “47 percent” remarks helped to solidify a narrative that already existed about Romney as:
- “Mr. Moneybags” and “Mr. 1%;”
- an out-of-touch millionaire with several mansions, one with a car elevator for his and his wife’s multiple cars;
- having offshore bank accounts in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands;
- being part of Bain Capital which has helped send many American jobs overseas;
- having a dressage horse that gave Romney and his wife a huge tax writeoff.
The other problem with Romney’s “47%” remark is that, included in his 47 percent of so-called "victims" are seniors who worked hard all their lives, paid into Social Security and are now receiving payments back from the Social Security program, as well as veterans who have served their country and may have been severely injured doing so. Last Election Day, many voters appeared to disagree with these characterizations by Romney.
© 2013 Matthew Emmer -- All Rights Reserved
[Note: links not in bold were added by Examiner.com]
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