VIDEO: Romney’s 5 Dumbest Comments

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Critics are jumping all over Mitt Romney’s Michigan stump-speech birther “joke” as if it’s the first unguided missile that ever left the Republican presidential candidate’s mouth. But Romney has a long history of campaign-trail remarks that have left listeners wondering if he’s from another planet. Here are five of dumbest:

1. The Birther Joke

          

He said what? “I love being home, in this place where Ann and I were raised. Where both of us were born…No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know this is the place where we were born and raised.”

Why was it dumb? Nothing will make campaign journalists drool all over their keyboards in excitement like a joke referencing the birther movement.

2. “Sport”

          

He said what? “I met a guy yesterday, 7 feet tall, handsome, great big guy…I figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn’t in sport. His business is caring for seniors.”

Why was it dumb? Besides the fact that this story is one phrase (“and then I found $10”) away from something your senile great aunt might say, Romney’s anachronistic use of “sport” makes little sense. In American English, “sports” replaced the use of “sport” in the mid-20th century. Is this something Romney picked up from the French?

3. NASCAR Owners

          

He said what? Asked if he followed NASCAR racing, he replied: “Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans, but I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.”

Why was it dumb? The reporter gave Romney an easy opportunity to relate to sports fans. But Romney inadvertently took the chance to remind his constituents that they are not like him. As The Nation‘s Ari Melber tweeted in parody: “Do I like movies? Well I have some friends that own movie companies…”

4. The Cadillacs

          

He said what? “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.”

Why was it dumb? Romney was trying to show Detroit that his connections to Michigan run deep, and he drives American cars. Instead, Romney told a city that has faced decades of hard times that he and his wife, Ann, roll in luxury—two deep.

5. The Trees Are the Right Height

          

He said what? “It seems right here, the trees are the right height…I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes. There’s something very special here.”

Why was it dumb? Romney is doing his darndest to show enthusiasm for his native Michigan, but something about the phrasing seems a bit off. Maybe it’s the fact that he sounds like he could be a character in the movie Anchorman (“Do you really love the lamp, or are you just saying it because you saw it?”) Or maybe it’s because Romney has actually used this lame speech multiple times on the trail.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate