LAS VEGAS — With its unvarnished tone and political candor, Mitt Romney’s secretly recorded comments to donors in Boca Raton, Fla., in which he said 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government handouts and do not pay income taxes, seemed jarring and unusual to those who have digested a year’s worth of his public statements.
They suggest the possibility of two Romneys: the careful candidate behind the lectern at a rally, and the blunt man behind closed doors with Republican contributors.
Romney has disputed that characterization in the past few days, arguing that his vision and values are consistent no matter who is in the audience.
“You’re coming to my fundraiser, and this is the same message that I give to people, which is that we have a very different approach, the president and I,” he told reporters after the video began circulating.
There is much overlap between what he says to both groups. But a close review of his remarks at dozens of fundraisers, in well-off neighborhoods from Los Angeles to Miami over the past year, highlights differences both subtle and significant in how he speaks to voters and donors, the two most important constituencies in his race for the White House.
At rallies and speeches, Romney speaks for about 20 minutes, then shakes hands with voters. He rarely takes questions, and when he does, it is just a handful.
At fundraisers, he is known to field questions for up to an hour, providing blunt and expansive responses that have defined his candidacy to a greater degree than any answer he has given to an ordinary citizen.
When Romney is with contributors, he at times openly embraces politically controversial figures. During an event at the Southampton, N.Y., estate of David Koch, the billionaire industrialist and political activist, a protester’s plane flew overheard with a sign that read “Romney has a Koch problem.”
“I don’t look at it as a problem,” Romney told the guests. “I look at it as an asset.”
Romney’s bluntness has even extended to the role of his wife, Ann, in the presidential campaign. In the leaked Boca Raton video, when a donor asked Romney why his campaign was not deploying his wife more, he replied, “We use Ann sparingly right now so that people don’t get tired of her or start attacking.”
A donor was incredulous. “Who gets tired of Ann?” the donor shouted.
Romney acknowledged last week that donors, like investors in a company, want different information than the general public, which he tries to give them.
