A new book shows that the Mother Jones scoop sent the GOP nominee into an emotional tailspin.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, when I obtained and posted a secretly recorded video of GOP nominee Mitt Romney deriding 47 percent of Americans as shiftless freeloaders who donāt ātake personal responsibility and care for their lives,ā I assumed this scoop would have an impact on the election. With President Barack Obama and the Democrats striving to define Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat who made millions acquiring companies he could break up or downsizeāwhich meant throwing employees out of workāhere was hard-and-fast evidence, in his own words, of a demeaning attitude toward nearly half the country. And, indeed, this revelation did shake up the race and place Romney on the defensive in the final stretch of the campaign. But what I didnāt think about at the time was how this story might affect Romney personally. Now we know. According to Romneyās own account, revealed in a new book out this week, the 47 percent exposĆ© sent him into an emotional tailspin and caused him to ponder dropping out of the race.
