By Alexandria Jezina
Columnist

Read the other side of the argument here.

Recently, presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been hammered by the media and critics for his comments pertaining to the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax. For those who are unaware, Mother Jones released a secret video of Romney in previous weeks featuring Romney stating:

“There are 47% of Americans who will vote for the president no matter what…My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them to take personal responsibility to take care of their lives”.
Romney supporters quickly responded to the video trying to rectify the situation by stating that Romney was describing more or less how he is not going to fight for votes of those who depend on the government and would not agree with Romney’s ideals in the first place. However, as Romney tries to repair his image, some of his constituents, not just democrats looking to rip Romney apart, may not be too pleased about such a big blunder.
Here are few reasons why Romney’s statement is incorrect and his numbers are down in the polls:

1. Many people who do not pay their income taxes are senior citizens who statistically tend to vote Republican.
2. Many lower income families who do not pay their income taxes and tend to lean left are more statistically likely to not vote compared to those with a higher income.
3. Romney has described how Obama is dividing the country on numerous occasions, but has hypocritically committed this act by separating the country 47% to 53%.

This video has been a major mistake for Romney’s campaign in the fact that his comments were not only erroneous, but left the impression of him not caring for a large group of American people. For those not sure of who to vote for this November, this statement may have left them leaning left as the video confirmed to some the stereotype of Romney being out of touch with the American people.