Democrats aiming to cast Mitt Romney and Republicans as out of touch with average Americans are seizing on comments an unnamed GOP donor made to a reporter outside a Romney campaign fundraiser in the Hamptons on Sunday suggesting "common people" don't understand what's at stake in the upcoming election.
"I don't think the common person is getting it," the Romney supporter, who declined to give her name, told the Los Angeles Times' Maeve Reston outside the Romney event. "We've got the message," she said. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies—everybody who's got the right to vote—they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income—one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."
The donor was described only as a New York City resident riding in the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. But her words quickly became fodder for Democrats amid a larger effort by President Barack Obama's re-election campaign to define Romney as a wealthy man who can't relate to everyday Americans.
In a fundraising email to supporters, Kelly Ward, political director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called the donor's comments "the kind of thinking we're up against in this election."
"If you don't think our country should be run by people who think you need a yacht for your opinion to count, then now's the time to show it," Ward wrote in the email. "Please donate $3 or more right now to beat out-of-touch Republicans."