The Obama campaign said on Tuesday that Mitt Romney's statement on the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay income taxes is completely different from President Obama's 2008 comments that some frustrated voters cling to religion and guns.
Stephanie Cutter, the deputy manager of the Obama campaign, said then-candidate Obama's comments, which received wide criticism during the 2008 presidential campaign, were the exact opposite of Romney's.
"He was saying the exact opposite of what Mitt Romney was saying. He was talking about how some people get frustrated by their circumstances and react to that and that we need to bring everybody together and talk to everybody about how we're going to strengthen middle-class security," Cutter said on MSNBC. "Mitt Romney was saying the exact opposite, that 47 percent of the country are never going to vote for him because they don't take personal responsibility for themselves, they consider themselves victims and that they're not his concern. So it's the exact opposite."
Cutter's comments come the day after Mother Jones magazine posted video of Romney at a closed fundraiser saying that 47 percent of Americans are "dependent" on government and would never vote for him over Obama.
The snippets of video captured of the May 17 fundraiser has put Romney on the defensive, and observers have compared the remarks to ones made by Obama at an April fundraiser in 2008 in which he said that some Americans who were not inclined to vote for him "cling to their guns or religion."
Democrats have been hammering Romney on his remarks. The GOP presidential nominee attempted to do damage control late Monday, saying the comments were "not elegantly stated." Romney did, however, say that his comments represented "the same message I give to people" publicly.
Cutter echoed the Democratic critique when she said Romney's comments show that he's essentially "written off" half of the country.
"I think it's very troubling that Mitt Romney went behind closed doors to basically say 'there's a reason that my policies help people like myself, because I don't care about the other 47 percent,'" she noted. "Well, that other 47 percent — you know, half of all seniors don't pay taxes. We're talking about veterans coming home getting veterans benefits. You know it's extremely troubling that you're running to be president of the United States and you've written off half of the country."
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