The GOP primary season also produced many of the sound bites and gaffes that Obama and the Democrats were able to use against Romney. From the reference to his wife’s two Cadillacs to the use of the term “self-deportation” regarding illegal immigrants to the $10,000 bet, Romney was easy to caricature as out of touch and uncaring. Perhaps most devastating were some of the attacks other Republicans used against Romney – particularly those that turned his success in private equity at Bain Capital into a negative. (See “vulture capitalist.”) Team Obama didn’t hesitate to use the available material to portray Romney as “a wealthy plutocrat married to a known equestrian,” as Republican eminence Haley Barbour of Mississippi put it facetiously.
David Goldman/AP
