Mitt Romney, campaigns in West Allis, Wis. Nov. 2, 2012.
Remember these? “I like being able to fire people;” “You didn’t build that;” “Corporations are people, my friend;” “The private sector is doing fine.” The 2012 presidential race was as rife with gaffes as any we’ve seen before, between Obama getting caught on a hot mike telling then Russian President Dmitri Medvedev he’d have more flexibility to negotiate after the election to Romney being caught on tape saying that the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes are people he wasn’t going to worry about. Yes, both sides stepped in it several times, but unlike candidates’ blunders in the Republican primaries (Rick Perry’s dismal, campaign-killing debate performances come to mind), the general election missteps didn’t do all that much to change the race. Romney’s “47 percent” comments did set him back in October, but he regained lost ground with a commanding performance in the first Presidential debate. In the end, the gaffes were little more than exciting nuggets that got played over and over and over again on cable news and in attack ads. They’re what make us happy that campaigns end — and fearful that 2016 is just around the corner.