Mitt Romney: I Wish Sandy Hadn’t Happened When It Did
Mitt Romney has mostly been out of the public eye since losing the election, but he’s been giving interviews this week, and it’s clear that he still retains the ability to say exactly the wrong thing:
Mitt Romney said he wishes Hurricane Sandy hadn’t wreaked havoc on the East Coast a week before the election, telling CNN in an interview that aired Thursday the storm gave President Barack Obama “a chance to be presidential.”
“Obviously a hurricane with a week to go before the election stalled our campaign,” Romney told CNN’s Gloria Borger.
(…)
“I wish the hurricane hadn’t happened when it did because it gave the President a chance to be presidential and to be out showing sympathy for folks. That’s one of the advantages of incumbency,” Romney said. “But you know, you don’t look back and worry about each little thing and how could that have been different. You look forward.”
About 138 people died as a result of Sandy, towns along the Jersey shore, in New York City, and on Long Island were devastated, and millions of people were without power during a cold weather snap for a week or more. And this guy wishes the storm had hit at a different time.
Here’s the video:
What a selfish and self-absorbed man? No matter than people got killed in Sandy. It should have come and killed those people..just after he had won the election, not as it did before. OH Mitt!
What was keeping the Romney campaign from stopping its usual operations in the states affected most by Sandy and turning into a relief effort? Hand out blankets and water bottles that say “Romney 2012,” the advertising writes itself. You had plenty of money.
Or is that against the law somehow?
Wish Sandy hadn’t happened when it did! So it appears it was alright to have happened it just messed up what he thought may have been a better chance for him to win had it happened after the election. Can this jerk be anymore uncaring and insensitive? He had the nerve to sing America the Beautiful, but be beautiful and dry for me when I’m running for president! I tell you what, we dodged a bullet in 2012. Thank the lord President Obama won the day. Romney has no soul and no sense!
OK, I’m sure this was a slip of the tongue, that Romney would rather the hurricane hadn’t happened. It’s not fair to pick on a little slip like this. But, it is Romney, so who cares if it’s fair. Pile on with my applause.
@Tillman: No, really, I’m thinking it might’ve been against the law to politicize storm relief. I still think Romney would’ve had the upper rhetorical hand. Everyone expects the president to be “presidential” in a national crisis, they don’t expect it from the challenger.
Generic Republican self-evaluation: I’m perfect, therefore anything that goes wrong is either a conspiracy or God’s Will.
Romney is still hard at work trying to refute Copernicus and Galileo…
What a
selfish and self-absorbed manfine conservative…FTFY
Hurricane Katrina gave George W. Bush “a chance to be presidential.” Did he take it? No.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, did. There’s your difference.
“I don’t normally complain about the timing of natural disasters, but when I do, I prefer hurricanes.”
Stay classy my friend.
@gVOR08:
I am really not sure. There is a temptation to see this as typical of robotic and detached guy, but there is also a temptation to write it off as a mere gaff.
I’m not sure “gaffe” works. I mean if you were asked for words about Sandy would your brain even go there? That the timing was bad for you?
I see that Mitt’s return to politics is going swimmingly. Carry on.
Mitt Romney is the Saddam Hussein Hugging the British Child of presidential candidates.
@john personna: “I’m not sure “gaffe” works. I mean if you were asked for words about Sandy would your brain even go there? That the timing was bad for you?”
And this is a guy who’s been a businessman for decades, a governor and church official. He’s had more experience in public speaking than any twenty of us.
@Barry:
Legacy candidates get too many passes. Romney, McCain, the Walker Bushes, Quayle, or at lower levels Connie Mack and Jesse Jackson, privileged sons whose primary qualification for office was being a son of privilege.
@john personna:
I’m no fan of Romney, but I can kind of see that as a gaffe. I had a coach (a pretty good guy from what I saw, definitely a very good teacher) say something equivalent about WW2. He was French and in university, and he went into the army instead of graduating. I suspect that when things happen on a scale so completely out of their control that people often wonder how things would have happened without that event. Doesn’t necessarily mean they think their own particular fate is the main consequence, or that they suffered as much as others, just that everything was upended.
In the specifics of Romney and the election I think he’s dreaming. He was losing anyway, and it was actually very much a chance for him to show compassion/humanity, which he missed on (and the fact that he didn’t see the opportunity says a lot more about him than his phrasing). The problem with Romney isn’t in his wondering what would have happened if fate had been different wrt Sandy, its that he doesn’t realize that being President is about a lot more than balancing the books (which he wouldn’t have done anyway given his views on lower taxes and bigger military, but that’s a different issue).
@gVOR08: Yeah, but sometimes slips of the tongue actually do reveal what the person really is thinking. They may even catch it and realize how what they said sounds bad, but it’s worse when they don’t even realize what they said sounded bad (then they don’t even realize they’re being selfish).