Some voters who were leaning towards Romney tell the @Freepthey're now for Obama after hearing Romney's 47% remarks.http://www.freep.com/article/20120919/NEWS15/309190128/Will-Mitt-Romney-s-47-remark-sink-his-campaign-
3:27 PM - 19 Sep 12 · Details
Jimmy Carter's grandson found Romney's '47%' remar...: Former President Jimmy Carter's grandson, James Carter, talks about how he originally found Mitt Romney's controversial "47%" comments on YouTube for Mother Jones magazine.
Related Links
- Mitt Romney scrambles to limit fallout; President Barack Obama criticizes remarks
- Many don't pay income tax, but they don't escape entirely
- Stephen Henderson: Most Americans defy Romney's stereotype of the 47%
- Letters: Was that the real Mitt Romney?
- Romney's 47% comments ripple across battleground map
- Romney calls Rick Snyder 'a strange guy' in controversial fund-raiser video
- Schuette: Romney must return focus to economy after 47% gaffe
- Stephen Henderson: Most Americans defy Romney's stereotype of the 47%
- Mitt Romney scrambles to limit fallout; President Barack Obama criticizes remarks
- Romney's 47% comments ripple across battleground map
- Many don't pay income tax, but they don't escape entirely
- Letters: Was that the real Mitt Romney?
- Mitt Romney: I'll deliver recovery, not dependency
- Mike Thompson: Mitt Romney's latest gaffe
- Brian Dickerson: At long last, voters get a glimpse of the real Romney
- With video: Mitt Romney says 47% of U.S. want handout, won't vote for him
- Romney stands by message in secret video
- Roundup: What pundits are saying about Romney's leaked '47%' comments
- Jimmy Carter's grandson arranged Romney video's release
- Romney calls Rick Snyder 'a strange guy' in controversial fund-raiser video
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to reporters about the secretly taped video from one of his campaign fundraising events in California Monday. / Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Karen Ranoni woke in her Romeo farmhouse at 5 a.m. Tuesday, an independent voter whose mind was all but settled: She planned to vote Mitt Romney for president Nov. 6.
By 8 a.m., her decision changed. Ranoni, 38, who does community volunteer work, tends her chickens and takes care of her three young children, had switched her allegiance back to President Barack Obama -- whom she voted for four years ago but thought had too deeply disappointed her to win her support again this year.
She said she changed her mind after watching a just-released video of Romney talking to wealthy donors in Florida, saying -- among other things -- that he didn't care about the 47% of voters who he said were certain Obama voters.
On Tuesday, it quickly became the most damaging foul-up so far for the Romney campaign. Mother Jones magazine released the video showing Romney, at a fund-raiser in May, citing statistics that 47% of earners don't pay federal income taxes and describing those non-filers as "dependent upon government" and people who consider themselves "victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."
As voters, he said, they were lost to him.
Critics blasted the Republican nominee as hard-hearted, and Romney set out -- in a hastily called news conference Monday night after the video was released and then again on Tuesday in an interview on the Fox News Channel -- to quell the controversy. In the latter, he linked his comments to Republican complaints that Democrats in general and Obama in particular want to redistribute wealth.
But Ranoni said she heard something more disturbing. Calling a Free Press reporter whom she told 10 months before that she was supporting Romney, she said the video -- which she saw on TV on Tuesday morning -- made her decide that Obama is the "lesser of two evils" this election.
What she heard from Romney was "disdain" for people who she believes deserve education, health care and other benefits regardless of their wealth or social status, she said.
For the record, Ranoni and her husband pay taxes, she said.
"I thought they were insensitive. I thought they were derogatory," she said of Romney's comments. "What we caught there was a tiny glimpse into what he really thinks."
That was the line of attack Democrats took in response, as well.
The Obama campaign unveiled an Internet video with people reacting -- negatively -- to the comments. Michigan Democrats held a conference call with reporters with state party Chairman Mark Brewer saying, "It's hard, if not impossible, to be president of the United States if you write off half" the people.
