Boston – Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is telling top donors that President Barack Obama won re-election because of the “gifts” he had already provided to blacks, Hispanics and young voters and because of the president’s effort to paint Romney as anti-immigrant.
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“The president’s campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift,” Romney said in a call to donors on Wednesday. “He made a big effort on small things.”
Romney said his campaign, in contrast, had been about “big issues for the whole country.” He said he faced problems as a candidate because he was “getting beat up” by the Obama campaign and that the debates allowed him to come back.
In the call, Romney didn’t acknowledge any major missteps, such as his “47 percent” remarks widely viewed as denigrating nearly half of Americans, his lack of support for the auto bailout, his call for illegal immigrants to “self-deport,” or his change in position on abortion, gun control and other issues. He also didn’t address the success or failure of the campaign’s strategy of focusing on the economy in the face of some improvement in employment and economic growth during the months leading up to Election Day.
Obama won the popular vote by about 3.5 million votes, or 3 percent, and won the Electoral College by a wide margin, 332-206 electoral votes. Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks showed that Obama led Romney by 11 percentage points among women and won better than 7 of 10 Hispanic voters and more than 9 of 10 black voters.
Romney called his loss to Obama a disappointing result that he and his team had not expected, but he said he believed his team had run a superb campaign. He said he was trying to turn his thoughts to the future, “but, frankly, we’re still so troubled by the past, it’s hard to put together our plans for the future.”
Romney’s finance team organized the call to donors. A person who listened to Romney’s call provided details about it to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the call was private. The Los Angeles Times first reported Romney’s remarks.
Among the “gifts” Romney cited were free health care “in perpetuity,” which he said was highly motivational to black and Hispanic voters as well as for voters making $25,000 to $35,000 a year.
Romney also said the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants – what he termed “the so-called DREAM Act kids” – helped send Hispanics to the polls for Obama.
Young voters, Romney said, were motivated by the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and being able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans. Young women had an additional incentive to vote for Obama because of free contraception coverage under the president’s health care plan, he said.
“I’m very sorry that we didn’t win,” he told donors. “I know that you expected to win. We expected to win. We were disappointed; we hadn’t anticipated it.”
Romney said he and his team were discussing how his donor group could remain connected and have an influence on the direction of the Republican Party and even the selection of a future nominee – “which, by the way, will not be me.”
Asked about Romney’s remarks, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential contender for the GOP nomination in 2016, strongly condemned those in the GOP who classify voters based on income, race or age and said the party cannot concede wide swaths of voters and expect to win elections.
“We have got to stop dividing the American voters,” Jindal told reporters in Las Vegas, where the Republican Governors Association was meeting. “We need to go after 100 percent of the vote, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote.”
Sadly, Romney is likely correct on all accounts.
I remember that black woman in the 2008 youtube video saying how Obama was gonna buy us all cell phones.
And he did. By golly, he sure did.
Sour grapes Mr. Romney. The votes you garnered were because you promised rich people even better gifts, the problem is that there are more poor and middle-class people than rich people in this country and most of those saw right through you. Lay it to rest already, you lost, go home and cry like the baby you are.
If Romney had appealed to more voters he would have won. His positions simply weren’t favored by the majority who voted.
Denial, sad to see it. He did nothing wrong. He did everything right. He was cheated, yeah, that’s it cheated. I wonder how long it will take him to see the truth.
I’m very saddened by Mitt Romney’s loss. Aside from the fact that this country had the opportunity to change the direction of the way it was heading in electing a formidable candidate, but instead decided otherwise. But more then anything – and I don’t think anyone is paying attention, and that is that the blacks, Hispanics and others who rely on government for their source of income ultimately have the say who our next president should be. Not the high income earners or other tax payers but minorities and others that are a burden on the federal govmnt, THEY are the ones that decide our future and which president we ought to elect. How sick and pathetic. And its only going to get worse ..
It isn’t only blacks, Latinos, women and the young who voted for the president. Mi-sheluni did too, as they were told that a Romney victory would reduce their ability to access food stamps, Medicaid, Section-8, and all the other things that have become entitlements to many of our own in certain parts of NYC and near-in suburbs.
9/11 was fault of the Republicans. “Students” from Saudi Arabia were here on expired “student” visas applied for flying lessons , learned how to fly and then hijacked ;planes. The CIA and did not share information with the FBI and they could not communicate with each other and 5,000 innocent people including Jews perished. Yes the Republicans would have restored a free for all economy. The king of Macao harlotry spent 53 million dollars funded a corrupt Gingrich censured by his Republican colleagues and called Romney pirat economics and worst. The man who wanted to restore the greatness to America so America can become another Greece were the rich don’t payt taxes and the working slobs are fleeced. For you information white poor in Mississippi, Lousiana, Kentucky and W.Va. are the bulk of food stamp recipients and of course the fine learning boys and Lakewood and don’t forget Kiryat Joel..
He hit one of the many nails directly on the head! All the democrats want to ever do is make the problem bigger, they have NO intention of correcting it. LBJ’s War on Poverty is STILL going on after almost FIFTY YEARS!!!! All they want to do is give more & more money to more people. They have created yet another class, the voter class, as in those on programs who now vote democrat in order to be sure to continue getting the programs.
We are now Greece of 10 years ago. This WILL fail thanks to the demorats!!
Mr. Barbour a spokesman for Republican party said enunciated a very wise statement that the Republican party needs a proctological examination and based on his statement some commenters need to see a Proctologist for examining their intelligent utterances
Hmm – I’m a frum, not so young, college-educated, white, Obama voter with a six-figure income. If I’m getting a gift, please tell me where to pick it up!
Oh that’s right, I got a gift – a President who has a sense of responsibility to our country as a whole, not one who would rather give it away to his wealthy cronies.