Mitt Romney has put two nails in the coffin of the working poor: he has stepped away from universal healthcare and he has introduced the bacon sundae to the masses.  In short, is he trying to kill off Obama’s potential voters?  If he wins, can we expect an extinction of the poorer class so that we have a homogenous constituency that looks like Romney?  Bain Capital has a vested interest in Burger King, which has just rolled out its 510 calorie and 18 gram of fat concoction of bacon and ice cream.  This week, he has also stated that as President, he would deny healthcare to millions with preexisting conditions by striking down Obamacare on Day One.  Isn’t this like leading pigs to slaughter and then, well, slaughtering them?

Of course, I hyperbolize.  Mitt Romney doesn’t want to kill off the masses and live in an elegant utopia of the healthy (and white) rich.  It wouldn’t be in his self interest.  Who would keep up the golf course?

Yet, by bringing forth the two elements listed above, it serves to reason that we should consider his view on the proper place of the poor.  To get down to bare bones here, how exactly does the entitlement of the non-rich differ from the friends of his that own Nascar teams?  Do they live under a separate edict where their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are lesser?  And if so, why? 

The old Republican adage is that the poor are simply too lazy to achieve the success that the owners of the means of production enjoy.  It’s the old “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” mantra that is taken up by modern day media talking heads who wave dismissive hands over climbing unemployment rates and talk of such nonsense like healthcare for brown children.  Yet, when the cuts are made to those bootstraps, where does that leave the poor?

Arguments have been made to cut down on bureaucratic programs that ensure a “welfare state.”  The cornerstone of that argument is that by squelching government programs that are paid by tax-paying Americans, the poor will have no choice but to take personal responsibility and get off the government teat.  In a larger view, it is more than that: It is the coercion of the government to make the rich pay for the poor.  Enforced charity.  In the American entrepreneurial climate, this seems unjust. More than that: un-American.  This is the state born of rugged individualism, away from the socialist tenets that make up, snort, Europe.

 Mitt Romney has been putting his hard-earned dollars into other people’s mouthes his entire life.  And not once has he been paid back by the collective people.  They continue to take and take and to ask questions of him, such as “Where do you stand on immigration reform?”  I get it.  This is no win for Romney.  If he stands with the President and promises support to the over 800,000 immigrants who have been in the US since childhood, he stands to lose his racist base. If he takes a stand against it, he loses the formidable Latino vote.  Same issue with foreign policy.  Can he aptly criticize Obama’s war strategy without alienating his own supporters? He’s stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

His best option is to attack at the micro level: the happy meal.  By freeing up some space in the voting booth by filling up the cardiac units with Obama’s constituents, he stands a good chance of being in the heady position of rejecting the healthcare benefits of those very voters. 

Well played, Mitt.  Well played.