FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the 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.
...
My job is, is, not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

- Mitt Romney, Early 2012

Well, that was bracing.

One of many frailties common to most of humanity is our tendency to believe that caricatures describe reality.

The hardest of the hardcore base of Republicans believe the stereotypes of Democrats as, if not anti-American, at least naively soft on defense, hating the idea of individual success, disdainful of those who strive for achievement, lustful for big government, and on and on. When Clint Eastwood debated the empty chair, he was beating up on the Obama imagined by many Republican partisans.

Democrats are most likely to win when they are successful in defying those series of images. Thus, Bill Clinton's workfare programs, and Barack Obama's success in killing terrorists, most especially in introducing Osama bin Laden to the ocean floor, have helped in garnering support.

Many Democrats have visions of country club Republicans, making their money by the buying and selling of others, holding honest work as the exclusive role of losers. The most partisan of Democrats debate their own empty chairs, envisioning the country club set of Republicans as vaguely bigoted, extremely wealthy, individuals who see themselves as entitled, morally superior, who see anyone disadvantaged as inherently undeserving, poor because they are too lazy or too irresponsible or too dependent to put forth any real effort to better themselves. The stereotype held of the wealthy conservative is one of puffed up I'm-better-than-you self-importance, requiring deference from the great mass of lesser humanity. He sees himself as a self made man," goes the old saw, "and he worships his creator."

Republicans are most likely to win when they defy that image. George W. Bush was the "compassionate conservative" and, although winning fewer popular votes than Gore, got close enough to a plurality to become President.

Mitt Romney's monologue to a small but appreciative group of wealthy, generous donors stressed with some exactitude the stereotype that group apparently holds of working class people. Lazy and irresponsible. Undeserving economic losers.

And it fulfilled the caricature of a Daddy Warbucks, top hatted Monopoly game figure. Say hello to Mitt Romney.

Three weeks ago, the Republican chair, taken to task and utterly defeated by Clint Eastwood, was occupied by an imaginary Obama that only Republicans can see.

As of yesterday, the Democratic chair is no longer available. That seat is taken by a very real, easy to see, documented on undenied video, Mitt Romney.