In an October debate, Romney was being pushed on the illegal immigrants, hired by a lawn-care service, who had worked on Romney’s property. He recalled telling the lawn service, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake – I can’t have illegals.”
Oops.
The comment made Romney look both out-of-touch wealthy (How many people hire lawn services?) and cynical. He implied that if he wasn’t running for office, he wouldn’t care if the lawn service was employing illegal immigrants. The gaffe, which went viral, fed into the narrative that Romney lacks core principles.
