2012 was a year of monumental achievements and deplorable failures. Chief among these are President Obama’s historic reelection despite harrowing obstacles, particularly an economy that was stubbornly weak and an opposition with nearly unlimited resources and animus. Then there was Gov. Romney’s surprisingly incompetent campaign that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on a losing effort that never seemed to have a coherent strategy.
There was no shortage of contestants in the competition to declare the person who had the most impact on the course of the year. Aspirants as diverse as Karl Rove and Donald Trump and Sandra Fluke and Nate Silver all vied for the top spot. But there can be only one Person of the Year, and in 2012 the person deemed by News Corpse to have had the most striking impact on shaping the affairs of the nation was – The Anonymous 47% Video Guy!
The still unidentified person who caught Mitt Romney at a private fundraiser candidly saying what he actually believes about nearly half the country, exposed what was the most profound revelation of the campaign.
Romney: 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.
With that statement Romney was confessing that his view, and that of the Republican Party, was that middle and lower class Americans were moochers who hinged their votes on what they could scam from the public trough. It was an insensitive and unretractable insult that buried any hopes of Romney gathering enough votes to prevail in November. But we must not forget that Romney didn’t invent this line of attack. He adopted it from other conservative voices, mostly emanating from Fox News. For instance, all of these quotes predated Romney’s speech:
- Bill O’Reilly: 50 percent of Americans don’t pay any federal income tax now.
- Stuart Varney: About half the people who work in America, half the households, actually, pay any federal income tax at all.
- Donald Trump: You do have a problem because half of the people don’t pay any tax.
- Dave Briggs: [A]lmost half of this country pays no income tax whatsoever.
- Gretchen Carlson: But what does that mean when you factor in that 50 percent of the nation doesn’t even pay federal income tax?
- Steve Doocy: With 47% of Americans not paying taxes – 47% – should those who don’t pay be allowed to vote?
- Sean Hannity: 50 percent of Americans no longer pay taxes.
- Neil Cavuto: I’ve discovered nearly half of this country’s households don’t pay any taxes at all.
- Dave Ramsey: This idea that 42% of Americans don’t pay anything…that’s just morally wrong.
- Brian Kilmeade: Fifty-one percent of the country isn’t paying any taxes at all.
- Eric Bolling: 43 percent of households don’t pay any federal tax.
- Glenn Beck: There was like 48 percent say they pay their right amount of taxes and 49 percent don’t pay any tax.
Clearly this was a well coordinated effort to demonize half the electorate. By documenting that Romney himself held the same views that the Fox Borg mind held, the Anonymous 47% Video Guy performed a valuable service to the nation. Romney could no longer toil in his Etch-a-Sketch world inventing himself anew and erasing any prior inconvenient opinions that threatened his fictional character development.
So congratulations to the Anonymous 47% Video Guy on being named the News Corpse Person of the Year. We hope to meet you someday and thank you personally.
I second your nomination, with the caveat, that the entire meme of the 1% derived from OWS.
Hundreds of millions spent(Rove spent 320 million), and it’s all undone by a cell phone and Rmoneys’ lack of an inner voice. Priceless.
I agree with your pick 100%.
Speaking of 100%, that’s how many Floridians don’t pay state sales tax. Bunch of freeloaders!
I’m surprised FoxNews hasn’t pointed that out yet. It only lacks context if you don’t know that Florida has no state sales tax, but it’s great at whipping up the rubes and teabaggers who are looking for something to hate others about.
Florida’s general sales tax rate is 6 percent. so not sure if you meant state Income Tax?
I think honorable mention should go to Jimmy Carter’s grandson, for tracking down the guy with the video, and convincing him to release it. An invaluable service, sir, thank you.