Fascinating piece in The LA Times about a call that Mitt Romney had with his donors. Romney basically repeats the 47% argument, without the blunt language. Obama won, says Romney, because he turned out throngs of people who want health care and the possibility of student loan forgiveness.

For example:

[Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-age women to back the president.]

"Romney argued that Obama’s healthcare plan’s promise of coverage 'in perpetuity' was 'highly motivational' to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters."

[“The president’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”]

In a lot of ways, this is more offensive than the 47% gaffe. For one thing, it makes a lot of assumptions about African American and Hispanic voters, as well as people who make below the median national income. But it's also a perversion of what government is supposed to do. Romney believes that any time the government does anything to help its citizens that it is breeding a nation of supplicants. This is, in fact, what Paul Ryan has argued, in plain language, in various drafts of his budget blueprint.