Mitt's "47%" comments may hurt him, but not with the GOP base

I had a Facebook exchange about the Mitt tapes with a relative who is a solid, holy-roller Republican. He seemed to assume Mitt was talking about the blacks and the Mexicans, not about people like him.

That kind of makes sense, in a twisted way. I have seen studies that show conservatives tend to greatly over-estimate the size of the black population and tend to assume almost all of them are on welfare. A lot of base GOP voters also assume incorrectly that virtually all undocumented workers get welfare checks.

So, given all that, I can see where Mitt's comments could actually help him -- in a "dog whistle" sort of way -- with the GOP base.

Will independents feel the same way? Only time will tell, but I am guessing they won't.