Gaffes III: Candidates should never openly Psychoanalyze Voters

And if they do...they should only do it in glowing terms.

Speaking to a select group of wealthy contributors, the Presidential Candidate was asked why he felt that his message found difficulty taking hold within certain portions of the American Public, the Candidate set off an unintentional firestorm by guessing.  This prompted the media to psychoanalyze the candidate's true motivation.

In 2012 that Candidate was Mitt Romney.

In 2008 that Candidate was Barack Obama.

Wealthy donors with intimate access want real strategy and a behind-the-scenes look in order to feel confident and justify a large contribution.  So it should come as no surprise to a candidate to be asked to psychoanalyze the American public.  Woe to the Candidate that describes his or her constituency in anything other than glowing terms.  

Every candidate - and frankly politician - should now expect every moment to be recorded and act accordingly.  Every candidate should expect to be asked a number of routine predictable questions and one of them ALWAYS will be something along the lines, "Why isn't your message resonating with X?"  

In 2008 Barack Obama responded with his own psychoanalysis, saying at a San Francisco Fundraiser:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.  

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

At the time, his Primary Opponent Hilary Clinton leapt on the gaffe, saying, "I think his comments were elitist and divisive," she said, noting the party's battles with the perception that it is out of touch.  Obama sought to quell the concern, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly.  "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that."

In 2012 Mitt Romney responded with his own psychoanalysis, saying at Boca Raton fundraiser:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… 

I mean the President start off with 48, 49..he starts of with a huge number.  These are people who pay no income tax.  Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. SO our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.  So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich.

 I mean, that’s what they sell every four years.  And so my job is not to worry about those people.  I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.  What I have to [do] is convince the five to ten percent in the center that are independents/// that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon, in some case emotion, whether they like the guy or not.”

Romney reacted in a very different way, saying that his message was not "elegantly stated" - he nonetheless reaffirmed the core message: to wit that to win this election he was going to have to worry about the five to ten percent of voters who had voted for Obama but are now disappointed.  

Candidates need to have prepared statements about the psyche of the American Voting Public and those statements ALWAYS need to be laudatory and praising. For example either candidate could have stated:  

Those voters aren't stupid, so we have to work very hard to get our positive message to them.

But in the end we would be deprived of a meaningful discussion about what motivates voters - at least from the candidates' point of mind.

QUESTION:  Which comment was worse - Obama's or Romney's?