Mitt Romney appeared in the Pittsburgh area yesterday, and participated in a “tax day roundtable” with eight regular folks at a park bench. Unfortunately for the presumptive Republican nominee, they didn’t stick to the script.
I realize it’s setting the bar too low, but Romney probably deserves at least some credit for speaking to voters who hadn’t been told what to say in advance. But spontaneity comes with a price — these Pittsburgh-area voters said they don’t want to see cuts to education and they’re comfortable with some tax increases.
ThinkProgress posted a video of the chat.
Remember. this was “tax day,” and Romney probably hoped to hear these folks complain about crushing tax burdens and their deep desire to slash public investments. But they didn’t — one participant said, “I don’t like to see cuts made in anything in education,” perhaps unaware of Romney’s plan to make deep cuts in education.
One man said, “None of us like to pay more taxes, but sometimes that’s necessary.” A woman added, “It’s a necessary evil.” The group nodded — though Romney didn’t — as a third participant said, “Right, right.” Now, I don’t know anything about these voters’ political preferences, and for all I know, they’ll all vote for Romney in November. But it was pretty entertaining to see Romney visit with “real Americans” on tax day, only to hear about their willingness to see higher taxes. These were, after all, “a handful of hand-picked southwestern Pennsylvania voters” telling Romney the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear.
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