Revealing words

Mitt Romney has run for president twice, unsuccessfully, for U.S. Senate once, unsuccessfully, and for governor once, successfully. But after his second and final loss in a presidential race on Nov. 6, his career in elected politics is likely over.

If he does run again, though, a valuable lesson would be for Romney to be very careful what he tells wealthy supporters when he thinks no outsiders are listening.

Most notorious in that regard was when he told a group of rich supporters during the campaign that 47 percent of Americans were basically moochers and freeloaders because they paid no income tax. It was a terribly hardhearted thing to say and reinforced his image as an out-of-touch rich guy.

Now Romney has been at it again, this time in a conference call with wealthy backers and supporters in which he blamed his loss on “gifts” that the Obama administration bestowed on certain constituencies — African-Americans, young people, Hispanics and women.

“The president’s campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift,” he said.

Forgiveness of college-loan interest was a “big gift”; free contraceptives a “big gift”; young people staying on their parents’ health plan for a few years longer a “big gift”; health care to poor families a “big plus”; not deporting the children of illegal immigrants “another big plus.” Who did he think was voting in this election? Speaking of gifts, many American wage earners — say, those in the 35 percent bracket, where Romney belongs — would be happy, come Christmas morning, to find a nice 13.9 percent tax rate under the tree.

That’s the rate multimillionaire Romney pays — a gift, you might say, from the American government. It did not serve Romney well in the campaign that so many of his programs seemed intended to ensure that Americans who didn’t get much would get even less.