A hot day in Des Moines
Last updated
Last updated
This Section: 42.3% complete
It's August 11, 2011 and Mitt Romney is holding a Q&A session at the Iowa State Fair. He's literally standing on a soap box, and a banner for the Des Moines Register is behind him. It's a seasonably warm day, with temperatures in the low eighties, and Romney's skin glistens with sweat. He wears a short-sleeved polo shirt and khaki pants.
Romney is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, and coming into Iowa he leads all candidates with 23% of the support among Republican voters.
During the Q&A session, Romney is challenged on his plan to save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid without raising taxes. The small crowd has been vocal and aggressive throughout Romney's 20-minute speech; Romney's heated response will capture headlines and plague his campaign:
The YouTube video is uploaded the same day as Romney's comments; it currently holds 434 thumbs-ups and 1,007 thumbs-downs.
The Democratic party pounces on Romney immediately. From the Huffington Post:
“This is what Mitt Romney is going to run on? Corporations are people? Really?” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “There’s a great message for people struggling to get by and trying to make ends meet. Don’t complain — corporations are people too!”
From the Washington Post:
The heated exchange prompted an attack from Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“Mitt Romney’s comment today that ‘corporations are people’ is one more indication that Romney and the Republicans on the campaign trail and in Washington have misplaced priorities,” she said in a statement, calling the comment a “shocking admission.”
NPR publishes Romney's 'Corporations Are People' A Gift To Political Foes and refers to tweets mocking the idea:
RT @jeezjon: Remember when we went out drinking with Target & AIG, and AIG totally starting hitting on that stripper? Good times.
RT @AndyCobb: I FEEL TERRIBLE. Exxon had a birthday, and I didn't get him anything but subsidies. And that's so unspecial.
If #CorporationsArePeople, what are their genders? Can two Corps marry? We know they can merge. #marriageequality
It's this last theme, the absurdity of thinking of corporations as human beings, that endures well beyond Romney's soapbox speech. In September 2012, more than a year later, Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Democratic Convention and delivers the highlight of the event:
After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They thrive. They dance. They live. They love. And they die. And that matters. That matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.
The crowd goes absolutely apeshit.