A partisan Democratic blog, Buckeye State, has posted video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shrugging off a voter’s question about a picture of him (originally posted by the LA celebrity-tracker site TMZ.com) smiling while holding a supporter’s sign that compared Barack Obama and “Chelsea’s Moma” to Osama bin Laden.
“Lighten up,” Romney says, after the questioner, blogger Jerid Kurtz, presses him to explain how he could compare any American to Osama. “I don’t particularly have anything to say about a sign someone else was holding.” [DailyKos has the item frontpaged here, with a different camera angle that shows Romney’s face better but is harder to hear.]]
Is this Romney’s “Macaca” moment? Not likely, as he’s in a Republican primary where Limbaughesque bashing of Democratic candidates can’t possibly hurt him. But there’s something about how brusquely he treats his questioner that may strike viewers as tasteless or heartless, especially as Kurtz prefaces his question by talking about how emotionally he reacted to see the World Trade Center towers fall.
In general, candidates getting snippy with voters face-to-face doesn’t make for positive online buzz.