Salon.com > Mitt Romney gaffes

65 best quotes of election 2012

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 22:24:00 +0000

Two years, 10 candidates, several sex scandals, too many rape scandals, one open-marriage scandal, and so many wonderful gaffes. Here is your definitive guide to the best quotes of the 2012 election from the early days of the circus GOP primary to key Senate races to Election Day.

65. For Pete’s sake: “I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals.” -- Mitt Romney at a GOP debate in October 2011.

64. O Captain! My Captain!: “Both Mitt and I have summer places up in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee. And a few summers ago I was taking my grandchildren and children to town in the boat for ice cream ... And I realized there was nobody in the boat to help me dock the boat, handle the ropes, do anything ... And I looked up and there was Mitt Romney. So he pulled me in, he tied up the boat for me. He rescued me just as he’s going to rescue this great country.” -- Marriott chairman Bill Marriott explaining how Romney will rescue America’s yachts, quoted by Politico in late September 2012.

Poll: Libya comments hurt Romney

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:40:00 +0000

It's been a rough week for the Romney campaign.

It began with the Republican presidential candidate's ill-timed comments follwoing protests in Cairo and an attack on a US consultate that killed four Americans in Libya, criticizing the president's administration for a statement it did not, technically, issue.

Most recently, the campaign has stumbled after the explosive release of secret videos showing Romney "not elegantly" dismissing the political importance of nearly half of the American populace.

Now, a poll confirms what we already suspected: these verbal missteps are costing Romney among potential voters.

A Tuesday Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 792 registered voters found that 40 percent of those surveyed felt "less favorably" toward the Republican presidential hopeful after he criticized President Barack Obama's handling of the attacks in Libya. That compared with 26 percent of those surveyed who felt worse about Obama after hearing his comments about the violence, Reuters said.

"Romney probably did not do anything to shore up his foreign policy cred on this particular issue," Reuters quoted Ipsos pollster Julia Clark as saying.

Mitt-statements — The master list

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:30:00 +0000

UPDATED: We've added to our comprehensive list of Mitt Romney's dubious statements -- and will keep updating until Election Day. Check back soon!

73. "Our Navy is older — excuse me — our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now down to 285." Romney made comment in the third debate, as a way of arguing that the military is weaker under Obama. This prompted Obama to make his now-famous comment that "we also have fewer horses and bayonets," making a point about how the military has changed since that decade, but is not necessarily weaker. But Romney was wrong on the facts too: Politifact labeled this claim "Pants on Fire" and said the claim is "meaningless." (October 22, 2012)