and we've heard the pure vitriol and sheer contempt and disdain with which Mitt Romney refers to these folks
you and I live in different worlds dude. be careful not to judge to quickly about what Mitt Romney thinks of "poor people". You may not agree with his ideas on what government should or shouldn't do for people in need - but don't make the leap to think you know what he believes about people in need. There is a difference.
When you smear those people who are so poor they are in the no tax bracket as people who don't care for their own lives and have no personal responsibility by definition, that's vicious and contemptible imho. Those are his words. He said them. He said them when he thought the media wasn't listening to boot. No spinning that or escaping that fact. Edit: btw, my original point was not referring to the candidate's contrasting policy positions on how to tackle the problem (though Mitt comes up short here in my view) but rather how the candidates talk (or don't talk) about the poor in the aggregate. It's not too hard to derive their priorities from there.These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax...And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.