Public Didn't Like Willard's Mideast Remarks

The time since the party conventions has not been good for Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie). He got no bounce from his own convention, and had to watch as the president got a very nice bounce in the polls from the Democratic Convention. That would have been bad enough, but then Willard had to shoot himself in the foot by trying to make it look like he knew something about foreign policy.

When the embassies of this country were attacked in the Mideast (especially in Egypt and Libya, where Americans were killed), Willard was quick to jump in and try to score some political points from the tragedy by blaming the riots on President Obama. And he did this at a time when Americans should have been standing behind the president. Many people found Willard's attempt to score political points off the death of American officials to not only be inappropriate, but unpatriotic.

This is verified by a survey done between September 13th and 16th by the Pew Research Center. Only 26% of all Americans approved of Romney's remarks on the Mideast turmoil (which is even less than the number of Americans who self-identify as Republicans). In fact, as the chart above shows, all demographic groups disapproved of Willard's remarks except one -- Republicans, and even there only 58% approved. This was truly a gaffe that hurt the Romney campaign.

About the only good thing about this affair for Romney is that it was pushed off the media front pages after only a few days. Unfortunately for the Romney campaign, the story that pushed it out of the media's glare was another shot to the foot by Willard -- the video of his disdain for half of the American people. Willard seems to be just stumbling form one disaster to another right now.