Howie Carr writing today in the Boston Herald:

Mitt Romney’s only mistake was lumping together all of the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes.

A lot of them are elderly, and many of them are voting for Mitt. And there are some people who work, but just don’t make a lot of money, or who would be working if they weren’t legitimately disabled.

But the indisputable fact is, a huge percentage of Obama’s voters are basically wards of the state. There are millions of them, and they have no intention of voting for anyone who might want them to ever go out and work for a living — “no matter what.”

As Romney said in Boca Raton last May: “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

There’s a component of the 47 percent, perhaps a large one, that Howie Carr alludes to and which Romney may have failed to take into account. There’s a subgroup of the 47 percent who are not there of their own volition, are capable of working, and would very much like to be working and taking care of themselves but are unemployed or underemployed because of the Obama economy. They are in the 47 percent but they don’t want to be there. Romney must speak to and tell them what he will do to get the economy growing again and how that will enable them to rise up out the 47 percent and begin to live happy and productive lives again. They have been forced into stressful lives by Obama’s feckless economic policies and will vote for anybody they believe will help them to help themselves to a better life. They do not want to merely exist; they want to be self-actualizing and independent. They will jump at the chance to achieve it. It’s a gift Obama has unwittingly bequeathed to Romney.

I hope he sees this great opportunity and will seize the moment.