MIAMI — Mitt Romney yesterday moved to turn his controversial “47 percent” remark into ballot-box gold, courting Latino voters and pledging to break Americans’ growing dependency on government handouts.
“My campaign is about the 100 percent of Americans,” Romney said when asked about the remark at a candidate forum taped at the University of Miami for the Spanish-language Univision TV network.
“This is a campaign about helping people who need help. And right now, the people who are poor in this country need help getting out of poverty. The people in the middle class need help because their incomes have gone down every year for the last four years,” he said.
Romney’s push in Florida, which continues today, coincides with fresh evidence that his campaign was not mortally wounded by the hidden-camera video of him saying that it’s not worth worrying about the “47 percent” who don’t pay taxes, rely on government benefits and therefore back President Obama.
His off-the-cuff comment at a private fund-raiser in May in Boca Raton, Fla., even got nods of approval from some Miami voters — especially hardworking Latinos who boasted that they’ve never taken a government-benefits check.
“I never took welfare [or] unemployment. I never took a dime,” bragged Roberto Gonzalez, 61, a Cuban-American who said he backs Romney because Obama put millions of people on the dole.
It resonated with Cesar Sousa, 48, who has been making a living driving a taxi since losing his restaurant.
Sousa, a registered Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008 but said he won’t this year, complained that the government dispenses too many handouts and too many people take advantage of it.
“I work every day,” said Sousa, who emigrated from Peru 29 years ago. “I came to this country to make money, not to get money for free.”
The Obama campaign has tried to use Romney’s remark to portray the Republican as an out-of-touch, uncaring rich guy.
A pro-Obama super-PAC started airing a TV ad that features the remark. It tells voters, “Mitt Romney will never convince us he’s on our side.”
But a Gallup poll released yesterday showed that Romney’s hidden-camera candor hadn’t dramatically altered the race.
Among registered voters, 36 percent said they were less likely to vote for Romney because of the remark. But 63 percent said it made no difference or made them more likely.
About 43 percent said it made no difference and 20 percent said it made them more likely to support the former Massachusetts governor.
Romney still trails by a narrow margin in most of the swing states that are expected to decide the presidential election.
In Florida, considered a must-win state, he trails Obama 47-46 percent in a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.