Romney steps in it with “I like being able to fire people” gaffe

Mitt Romney has by all accounts run a clean and smooth – if unexciting – campaign for the Republican nomination for President. And given the remarkable shortcomings of his opponents – lack of money, lack of campaigning skills, poor personality, etc. – that is all he has needed to do to position himself to win the Republican nomination and make Barack Obama have to fight like hell to keep his job next November.

Until today, that is.

Speaking to  a crowd in Nashua, N.H. on the eve of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and CEO of Bain Capital, said “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” Watch the whole clip below:

Yes, Romney was speaking strictly as a consumer and the importance of having the freedom to go to someone else if you’re not happy. But he never should have said that specific line for two very important reasons:

1. It makes him seem callous to the plight of the millions of Americans that are unemployed

2. Most importantly, it reinforces the narrative of Romney that he is a real-life Gordon Gekko who can’t relate to middle class Americans and will gladly fire you if it will make him money.

Reason #2 is most damaging because those are the gaffes that stick. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, called Romney a “job cremator” this past weekend. And as Mr. Media Training‘s Brad Phillips noted today, a gaffe that reinforces a broader idea that people already consider to be true is also going to be considered truthful even if it is taken out of context or isn’t true at all.

There are many examples of this throughout history, both in politics and otherwise. Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy Ad” during his 1964 campaign reinforced the narrative that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, was a crazy reactionary who would bring about nuclear war with the Soviets (a huge concern during the height of the Cold War). Almost 25 years later, a Political Action Committee that supported George H.W. Bush for President ran the “Willie Horton Ad” to reinforce the notion that Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was soft on crime, even if the Massachusetts program referenced in the ad was actually passed more than a decade before by Dukakis’ predecessor.

You are what people perceive you to be, and people take far better to messages that reinforce what they already believe to be true than to ones that tell them that what they believe to be true is wrong. And while any gaffe is damaging, a gaffe that reinforces people’s negative impressions of you is particularly damaging and hard to shake.

How much will this hurt Romney? In the primary, likely not much. The New Hampshire primary is Tuesday and the South Carolina primary is the week after. Romney still holds commanding polling leads in both states and if he wins both, the GOP race is essentially over. The other candidates won’t be able to get the money and other support needed to overcome Romney’s momentum, and they’ll quickly coalesce around the nominee.

But expect this gaffe to be repeated plenty of times by Obama’s campaign, the DNC and whatever PACs get behind Obama during the general election campaign. It is hard to make one gaffe stick for 10 months, but this one could do so, especially since the economy is THE issue of the 2012 campaign. Voters may not be happy with Obama’s job performance (I am among them), but if they don’t consider the challenger to be a better alternative, they’ll re-elect the incumbent.

Beating an incumbent – even one as vulnerable as Obama – is very difficult. Gaffes like today won’t help Romney any.