But click through the “videos” section of Mitt Romney’s Web site and you’ll see something odd: His campaign is running more ads about welfare than just about any other issue. Of the 12 most recent ads posted, five are about welfare. That’s more than the number dedicated to health care (four) or introducing Paul Ryan (one) or the economy (one).
Romney’s ad warns that, “under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and you wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you a check and welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare.”
Political scientist Michael Tesler partnered with the YouGov online polling service to test the question on 1,000 respondents. All the participants answered a standard set of questions that researchers use to identify levels of racial resentment. Half were then shown RomneyÂ’s ad. The others werenÂ’t. Then both groups were asked whether Obama and RomneyÂ’s policies would help or hurt the poor, the middle class, the wealthy, African Americans and white Americans.
“Among those who saw it,” reports Tesler, “racial resentment affected whether people thought Romney will help the poor, the middle class and African Americans. Moreover, seeing the ad did not activate other attitudes, such as party or ideological self-identification. It only primed racial resentment.”