For months, Mitt Romney like John McCain before him has tried to compare President Obama to Marie Antoinette, an Ivy League educated elitist who is out of touch with the American people. Of course, that task is a daunting one for the $250
July 11, 2012

For months, Mitt Romney like John McCain before him has tried to compare President Obama to Marie Antoinette, an Ivy League educated elitist who is out of touch with the American people. Of course, that task is a daunting one for the $250 million man who insists his personal finances remain a mystery to voters. And Romney's laughable case of projection became even more comical after he held three $75,000-a-head fundraisers in the Hamptons last weekend.

Obviously, Mitt Romney is the one who is badly out of touch. And here are just some of the ways you can tell.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he tells his guests in the Hamptons that "I spend a lot of time worrying about those that are poor" after previously declaring, "I'm not concerned about the very poor."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when one of his Hamptons donors explains "the common person" and "the lower income" voter "don't understand what's going on."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch he expresses his disdain for those common people who wear polyester and plastic rain ponchos, while praising his friends who own NASCAR and NFL teams.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he criticizes President Obama's call to let the Bush tax cuts expire for only the top two percent of earners as a "massive tax increase" for "on families, job creators, and small businesses," while proposing an average $264,000 annual windfall for the top 0.1%.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" could save his own family tens of millions of dollars and his billionaire backers billions more by ending the estate tax.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his surrogate Haley Barbour says Mitt's tax returns don't "amount to diddly," the same expression he used to describe slavery after his state of Mississippi omitted mention of it in its Confederate Heritage Month declaration.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when defends his supposedly blind trust's investments by claiming "I don't even know where they are" after having accused Ted Kennedy in 1994 of running a "an age-old ruse" with a "blind trust that appeared to be not quite so blind."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his supposedly blind trust transferred 12,000 shares in a Bermuda company to his wife's blind trust the day before he was sworn in as governor in 2003, closed a $3 million Swiss account in 2010 and invested $10 million in son Tagg's new firm, Solamere Capital.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he tells college students to "borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he tells high school students to "get as much education as you can afford" or "if you can't afford it, scholarships are available, shop around for loans, make sure you go to a place that's reasonably priced, and if you can, think about serving the country 'cause that's a way to get all that education for free."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he announces his five sons serve their nation by "helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he joined pro-Vietnam War protesters at Stanford, only to then secure multiple deferments to perform his church mission in France.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann explains that when Mitt was at Harvard, she was able to avoid the "dignity of work" because "Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time. The stock came from Mitt's father."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the Harvard law and business school graduate repeatedly accuses Barack Obama of spending too much time in the Harvard faculty lounge.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he explains his refusal to release his tax returns by declaring "I don't put out which tooth paste I use either. It's not that I have something to hide."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his father released 12 years of tax returns and he himself gave John McCain 23 years' worth in a failed attempt to become his 2008 running mate.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the estimated 14 percent tax rate he paid the IRS is lower than many middle class families.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" delivers two-thirds of its benefits to millionaires - including Mitt Romney.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he claims that his donations to his church and other groups mean his "tax rate is really closer to 45 or 50 percent."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he has his wife Ann do interviews in 2002 and 2006 touting his pro-choice credentials and his "essential" individual health insurance mandate in Massachusetts.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann laments "unfortunately" the world now knows how "successful in business" her husband has been, but that nevertheless wants to "remind you where our riches are: our riches are with our families."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann insists they won't travel abroad as First Couple because "our vacations and our happiness come from being with our children and our grandchildren," and adds that she and her husband "own places for that."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he jokes he never intended to run for office again after 2008 because "I went back and bought a home which was far too expensive and grandiose for the purposes of another campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in, votes in and pays taxes in - twice.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, "downsizing and simplifying."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his advice to struggling American homeowners is "don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are "the party of the monarchists."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when one of those often seven-figure horses is on the U.S. Olympic team, and the Romneys' potential $77,000 tax deduction for horse-related expenses exceeds the average household income in America.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he was raised in upscale Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, claims he's just "a guy from Detroit" and then authors an op-ed piece titled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he then claims "I'll take a lot of credit" for the Obama rescue package which saved the American auto industry.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he pretends he had to worry about "getting a pink slip," but stills gets a chuckle thinking about those who did when his father moved AMC jobs from Michigan to Wisconsin.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he looks back fondly at being with his dad at Detroit's Golden Jubilee, a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the American automobile which occurred on June 1, 1946, "fully nine months before Romney was born."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes with jobless voters, "I'm also unemployed."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he stages a photo-op with an unemployed single mom in Michigan - who also happens to be the mother of a paid campaign staffer.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares himself part of the "80 to 90 percent us" who are middle class.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares "I love a flat tax" after calling it a "tax cut for fat cats."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid -- "the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds "I'm not concerned about the voters" after Tim Russert asked him "why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you're spending?"

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he lies about federal employees making more than their private sector counterparts and then complains about "our servants who are making a lot more money than we are."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when calls for state pension funds to divest their holdings in companies doing business in Iran, only to learn that his former employer is doing just that.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration, only to reply "aw geez" when informed undocumented workers have been landscaping his home.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his defense is "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when claims he opposes a religious test for office after having said "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he starts uncomfortably chanting "who let the dogs out" during what looks like his only interaction with African Americans on the campaign trail.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he still chants "who let the dogs out" after the world learns he strapped the family dog to the roof of his car.

You know Mitt is out of touch when his own adviser Michael Murphy informs Massachusetts voters in 2005 that Romney's "been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly."

You know that Mitt Romney is out of touch when he comes out in support of anti-abortion "personhood" amendments after having previously told Americans he was pro-choice because "I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he said of Osama Bin Laden in 2007, "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he panders to the NRA by proudly declaring "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life," only to clarify two days later "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when explained that while he placed Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's work among his favorite novels, "I'm not in favor of his religion by any means. But he wrote a book called 'Battlefield Earth' that was a very fun science-fiction book."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when says "My life experience convinced me that Ronald Reagan was right" and giving himself a 10 out of 10 on the conservative scale a decade after proclaiming during his 1994 Senate run, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he planned to run in 2008 against Hillary Clinton by claiming "Hillary = France" despite his having addressed the 2002 Winter Olympics in fluent French.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he runs an ad in Spanish which concludes "soy Mitt Romney y apruebo este mensaje" (I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message) after demanding that "English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he starts flip-flopping on flip-flopping, claiming "I think you'll find that I've been as consistent as human beings can be" after having declared "if you're looking for someone who's never changed any positions on any policies, then I'm not your guy."

Note: This is the latest installment in an ongoing series last updated November 8, 2011.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

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