Romney actually wants to help 'poor people,' and support the Middle Class--of course the right isn't happy

From talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh to The Wall Street Journal editorial page, conservative pundits are coming down hard on the Republican presidential front-runner over the second part of Romney’s point: that the poor have a safety net, “and if there are people that are falling through the cracks, I want to fix that.”

A gasping Mr. Limbaugh could barely contain himself.

“The safety net is one of the biggest cultural problems we’ve got!” Limbaugh said. “We had better be worried about it just like we had better get angry over Obamacare. Obamacare is worth getting mad about. Mitt said that it wasn’t. This biz, ‘I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there’? Right, the safety net is contributing to the destruction of their humanity and their futures!"

But Romney hasn’t exactly been trying to make it up to conservatives. In fact, in remarks to reporters on his campaign plane Wednesday, he reaffirmed his longstanding support for automatic increases to the federal minimum wage to keep up with inflation – a position that conflicts with Republican orthodoxy.  

Romney’s real point, he said throughout the day, has been to show concern for the middle class. “I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 to 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling,” he said in his original remarks to CNN. “I’ll continue to take that message across the nation."