On Wednesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to a statement former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made earlier in the day that he was “not concerned about the very poor.”
Krauthammer argued that the statement was ill-advised because it reinforced stereotypes about Romney and how he is out of touch with “the poor.”
“Well, this is bad,” Krauthammer said. “It’s not just the day after a big win in Florida, he had only spent a whole day on a sound bite that could be taken out of context, and it has been and it will be. And it’s not just that it strengthens the stereotype of Romney as the patrician who is only aware of the poor as people who clean the streets and wash his car.”
In addition to the problematic class aspect of his statement, Krauthammer said it also contradicted the case for “conservative economics.”
“The moral case for conservative economics is that our policy is going to help everybody, including the poor,” he said. “Two examples, school choice, which will help those trapped in the inner cities and tyranny of the teachers unions, will finally have an education, have the skills to get a job. And you lower the marginal rates in taxes so you encourage economic expansion and creation of jobs. The idea that somehow we can sign the poor to the safety net and we patch it and dependency is a liberal idea.”
“Romney is a guy who came late to his new ideology and still can’t speak it very well,” suggested Krauthammer.