Marlin Cobb – 10/3/12

This page was last updated on October 4, 2012.

Wake up, America; Marlin Cobb; Beaver County Times; October 3, 2012.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“On candidate Romney’s comment that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes and expect government handouts, OK I’ll say it, it appears he was referring to blacks, poor whites and Latinos.”

[RWC] At a campaign fund-raiser, an audience member asked, “For the last three years, all everybody’s been told is, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.’ How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections, to convince everybody you’ve got to take care of yourself?” Here’s the Romney response to which Mr. Cobb referred:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…”

The full transcript of Mr. Romney’s comments as published by Mother Jones.

What in Mr. Romney’s response led Mr. Cobb to believe Mr. Romney “was referring to blacks, poor whites and Latinos?” It appears Mr. Cobb projected his prejudices onto Mr. Romney. That is, Mr. Cobb sees “blacks … and Latinos” as free riders so he accuses Mr. Romney of the same bigotry.

“Here we go again with Republicans playing the code-language game again. Ronald Regan [sic] used it with ‘Welfare Queens,’ Daddy Bush used it with ‘Willie Horton,’ now it’s Romney’s turn. This country is still divided. I don’t care if there is a [sic] African-American in the White House.”

[RWC] I keep reading about “code-language” and “dog whistles.” Where can I get the decoder ring Mr. Cobb appears to wear and a dog-whistle receiver? I’m not getting the same messages as Mr. Cobb.

Mr. Reagan’s “Welfare Queens” comments had nothing to do with race and Mr. Cobb knows it assuming he did his research.

Regarding “Willie Horton,” Mr. Cobb probably would not like us to know Al Gore initially brought up this issue, not Mr. Bush. Mr. Gore used the issue against Michael Dukakis during the 1988 Democrat primary, though he apparently didn’t mention Mr. Horton by name. In case you don’t know, Willie Horton was a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in a Massachusetts prison without possibility of parole. Incredibly, Mr. Horton was released on weekend furlough and did not return (surprise, surprise). About 10 months later, Mr. Horton raped a Maryland woman twice and beat and knifed her fiancé. Mr. Dukakis was Massachusetts governor at the time and supported (but did not initiate) the furlough program. That said, Mr. Dukakis vetoed a bill that would have excluded first-degree murderers from the furlough program. The reason this topic came up was Mr. Dukakis tried to run on his experience in the justice system and he mentioned the furlough program as a positive.

“Romney is nothing more than a puppet for the wealthy, he lacks the intelligence to be president of these United States. Wake up, America.”

[RWC] After Mr. Cobb apparently accused Mr. Romney of being a bigot and stupid, did you note Mr. Cobb didn’t (couldn’t?) tell us why someone should vote for Mr. Obama?