47 Percent, Part 2

prospect.org — It seems that Mitt Romney still doesn't get that voting isn't a commercial transaction. Yes, sometimes voters make a choice based on their own lives. If you're worried about whether you'll be able to get health insurance, and one candidate has already passed a law ensuring that you will be able to, while the other candidate promises to repeal that law, you have a direct and personal interest in the election's outcome. On the other hand, if one candidate spent a year heaping contempt on people like you – whether because you're gay, or Latino, or an urban dweller, or whatever – then even if you think his policies might not affect you too directly, you probably still won't vote for him. But it's also possible to look at what the government has done for you and make a wider judgment about how the government is treating other people.

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