Most people would think defending the idea that corporations are people was a tone-deaf mistake, but not Mitt Romney, noooo.

He has actually included that same spiel in his latest campaign YouTube – in case you’ve forgotten it, here it is again:

Businesses are comprised of people. I’m talking about repair shops, and gas stations, and beauty salons, and restaurants. I’m talking about Apple computer, and Facebook, and Microsoft. I’m talking about businesses that employ people. It’s really astonishing to me that the Obama folks would try and argue that businesses aren’t people. What do they think they are? Little men from Mars? But when they tax business, they tax people.

By this same logic, I would like to declare myself a single-celled organism, and therefore exempt from all taxes.  Or better yet, I would like to declare myself a molecule, and therefore exempt from death as well.

Just because businesses are made of people, doesn’t mean they are people.  And sometimes they even treat their component people pretty shabbily, like Romney’s very own corporate person did.  So if you’re going to try to drum up sympathy for corporations by pointing out all the people they employ, you might want to cut out the middleman and show some sympathy for those people directly, by protecting their Social Security and Medicare, or their unemployment insurance, or their right to use unions and lawsuits to defend themselves against abusive employers.

Trying to claim that being pro-corporation is the same as being pro-people is just incredibly dishonest, and the more Mitt repeats this line, the more flesh-and-blood people he’s going to alienate.

On the other hand, if he continues to emphasize unemployment and Obama’s cluelessness about the economy, that message is going to resonate.  Of course, the main reason Obama sucks so badly on the economy is that he mostly agrees with the Republicans, but as long as they keep calling him a socialist no one will notice.