Tuesday's TimesCast on nytimes.com [1] opened with a discussion of the "devastating" and "horrible moment" for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign that was the surreptitiously recorded video of Romney speaking at a fundraiser in Florida in May noting “47 percent of Americans pay no income tax." According to host Megan Liberman, Romney's words "seems to feed perfectly into the Obama campaign's narrative about Romney, that he's just a guy who doesn't care about regular people."
Liberman: "The Romney campaign is playing defense today after the release of this hidden camera video. National political correspondent Jim Rutenberg joins me now to talk about it. So Jim, is this just another gaffe, or is this video really as devastating as a lot of people on both the right and the left are saying that it is?"
Reporter Jim Rutenberg: "It's potentially devastating. I mean, whether it's determinative is, you know, we'll see. But it's a horrible moment for this campaign, there's no question about that."
Liberman: "There's one part of this quote about the 47% that's getting a lot of attention, so let's just listen to that really quickly."
Romney clip: "It's not my job to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the five to ten percent in the center, that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion...."
Liberman: "So Jim that seems to feed perfectly into the Obama campaign's narrative about Romney, that he's just a guy who doesn't care about regular people, right?"
Rutenberg: "Right. I mean believe me, the Obama video people and their supportive groups like a PrioritiesUSA Action, are pouncing on this video."