Romney's 'Poor' Remark Resonates - NYTimes.com Obsessive attention to detail suffuses Mitt Romney's candidacy for president, from the number of times aides check the microphones at his rallies to the relentless manner in which they scour Twitter. But his aides aren't always able to bring that famed level of discipline to a crucial area of the Romney campaign - their candidate's seemingly endless ability to utter remarks that, to his critics" delight, sail onto political blogs, YouTube and Twitter. On Wednesday morning in an interview with CNN, Mr. Romney said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor," a comment that has ricocheted around the Web and cable news channels, and which Mr. Romney took pains to clarify in a brief conversation with reporters as he flew to Minnesota. The comment seems to have captivated the political psyche because it reinforces the Democrats" biggest line of attack against Mr. Romney, as well as the Republicans" worst fear: that Mr. Romney's net worth, estimated at $200 million, leaves him out of touch and unable to relate to average Americans who are struggling. Taken in the full context of his remarks, as Mr. Romney urged reporters to do, his statement appears more benign: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. I'm not concerned about the very rich - they're doing just fine, But for a campaign that has been accused of taking Mr. Obama's remarks out of context, the sentence about the poor immediately became cataloged in a growing list of comments by Mr. Romney that suggested a distance from the concerns of struggling Americans. As his tax returns became a growing issue, Mr. Romney said that his speaking fees of more than $370,000 was "not very much" money. When talking about taxation in August, he said, "corporations are people" - a line that will not go away, despite its context: "Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes? And he said, "I like being able to fire people," for bad service, just as his leadership at the venture capital firm, Bain Capital, was being questioned. So, the latest remarks about the poor play into the narrative that his critics like to draw - that of an out-of-touch capitalist. Even conservatives are furious with Mr. Romney. PunditandPundette.com wrote: "My real point is that a conservative candidate would talk about increasing opportunity for the very poor, about lessening the need for food stamps and housing vouchers by reducing government and invigorating the economy, rather than touting the awesomeness of our massive, dependency-inducing welfare state and suggesting it might need some beefing up. But Romney's no conservative. So this is to be expected.  At The Weekly Standard, John McCormack wrote on the magazine's Web site: Romney's remark isn't merely tone-deaf, it's also un-conservative. The standard conservative argument is that a conservative economic agenda will help everyone. For the poor, that means getting as many as possible back on their feet and working rather than languishing as wards of the welfare state. Asked later on his plane to elaborate on the remark, Mr. Romney said, "I've said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is going to be devoted to helping middle-income people, all right?" he said. "We have a safety net for the poor in the country, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that," he added.