According
to a post in The Caucus blog in the New York Times Mitt Romney attributed his
recent election loss to the fact that President Obama had “followed the ‘old playbook’ of wooing specific interest groups —
‘especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young
people,’ with gifts.
Wow, are we
still doing new versions of the 47 percent and “makers and takers” even after the election? Apparently
so. A Romney breakdown of the
“gifts” given to the various groups by President Obama:
To young [white]
people, “a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” said Romney.
An added gift was Obamacare since it “also made a difference for them, because
as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part
of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people.”
To young
college-aged [white] women in particular: “Free contraceptives were very big
with young college-aged women.”
To black and
Latino voters: healthcare, because
“[y]ou can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year,
being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t
have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity,
I mean, this is huge.”
To Latinos
in particular: “amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids,
was a huge plus for that voting group.”
When
I read the report of Romney's comments I thought maybe this was some kind of
comedic riff, perhaps a take-off on The Wizard
of Oz where young white women, young white men, blacks and Latinos, in the guise of Dorothy, the tin man, the scarecrow and the lion, are all in a
self-satisfied post election haze, not because of magic poppies, but because each
has received the gifts of their hearts’ desires from Obama the Magic Negro, er,
wizard.
Or,
maybe, I thought, this almost being the Season, perhaps this was an inverted,
postmodern retelling of the Nativity story where there is one magi, played by Obama, and where there is no gold, frankincense or myrrh. Instead, Magi Obama
gives three gifts to not one but three infants: young white people, blacks and
Latinos. They all turn out to be political babes in mangers instead of the
political babes in the woods that the Romney people thought they were. Those
babes are politically anointed ones and grow up into a full-fledged
holy electoral triumvirate.
It’s
kind of hard to know if we’re in Oz or Bethlehem; either could work I suppose.
