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enlarge Credit: New York Times Among the more comical episodes of the 2008 presidential campaign was the failed effort by Republicans to paint Barack Obama as “elitist” and “out of touch.” Sadly for the GOP, that attack backfired hilariously when John McCain couldn’t remember how many homes he owned, said a $5 million income made someone rich, and advocated tax cuts that would save he and his heiress wife hundreds of thousands annually. Now three years later, Mitt Romney appears poised to fall into the same gold-plated trap. After decrying President Obama for referring to the sluggish economic recovery as a “bump in the road,” GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney joked with jobless Floridians that ” I’m also unemployed .” Of course, one feeble attempt at humor doesn’t make Mitt out of touch; that takes a lifetime of experience. Here are just some of the ways you know Mitt Romney is out of touch : You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes about being unemployed. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he stages a photo-op with an unemployed single mom in Michigan – who also happens to be the mother of a paid campaign staffer. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he won’t release his tax returns during any of his runs for office. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid — “the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds ” I’m not concerned about the voters ” after Tim Russert asked him “why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you’re spending?” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that “Mitt doesn’t even know the answer to that” when asked how many dressage horses she own s. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, “downsizing and simplifying.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in , votes in and pays taxes in – twice. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are “the party of the monarchists.” You Mitt Romney is out of touch when he claims his five sons serve their nation by “helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he avoided combat duty in the rice fields of Vietnam by getting multiple deferments to perform his Mormon mission in the vineyards of France. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he was raised in upscale Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, claims he’s just “a guy from Detroit ” and then authors an op-ed piece titled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt .” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when calls for state pension funds to divest their holdings in companies doing business in Iran , only to learn that his former employer is doing just that. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration, only to reply “aw geez” when informed undocumented workers have been landscaping his home . You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he starts uncomfortably chanting ” who let the dogs out ” during what looks like his only interaction with African Americans on the campaign trail. You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he still chants “who let the dogs out” after the world learns he strapped the family dog to the roof of his car . You know Mitt is out of touch when his own adviser Michael Murphy informs Massachusetts voters in 2005 that Romney’s “been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he said of Osama Bin Laden in 2007 , “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he panders to the NRA by proudly declaring ” I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life ,” only to clarify two days later “I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when explained that while he placed Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s work among his favorite novels , “I’m not in favor of his religion by any means. But he wrote a book called ‘Battlefield Earth’ that was a very fun science-fiction book.” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when says “My life experience convinced me that Ronald Reagan was right” and giving himself a 10 out of 10 on the conservative scale a decade after proclaiming during his 1994 Senate run, ” I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush .” You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he runs an ad in Spanish which concludes “soy Mitt Romney y apruebo este mensaje” (I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this message) after demanding that “English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada.” (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)