WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Clint Eastwood made history by demolishing an imaginary president in a debate. Mitt Romney has gone Eastwood one better: He’s conjured up an imaginary country, one in which half of the people don’t matter.

And he’s not going to debate them; he’s totally ignoring them.

You remember Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan? Mitt Romney, has his own political numerology: The 47-47-47 theory.

Mitt Romney said he wouldn’t even try to get the votes of the 47% of the country that are moochers. Reuters

Romney told a group of wealthy donors last spring that America was deeply divided: Nearly half of the people — 47% to be exact — were essentially living off the government’s largesse, while the rest contributed to America’s greatness. Forty-seven percent paid no income taxes, 47% thought the government owed them a cushy life on a silver platter, and, not-so-coincidentally, 47% liked Barack Obama. Read more at Mother Jones.

According to Romney’s math, about half the people — 47% to be exact — are tax-avoiding, government-dependent, deadbeat Democrats. A roughly equal number are tax-paying, hard-working, clean-living Republicans. And maybe 5% or 10% are misguided centrists who let emotion get the better of them in 2008. For another viewpoint, read Rep. Allen West’s column on the 47%.

Romney said he wasn’t even going to try to get the votes of the freeloading 47%.

“My job is not to worry about those people,” Romney said in a video of the remarks. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Why bother? Now that they had become addicted to living off the rest of us, they could never be saved. They would never vote Republican again.

Romney video diverts attention from campaign

Giving up on the 47% must have been a very tough decision for Romney to make. After all, he’s the head of a grand old party whose first and greatest president tried to a heal a nation divided against itself. But Lincoln’s successor, Mitt Romney, instead expresses malice toward 47%.

And Joseph Smith, the founder of Romney’s faith, prophesied about a community in which everyone seeks “the interest of his neighbor,” dreamed of a place where everyone shares equally and receives justly “according to his wants and his needs.” Romney’s own wife, Ann, was once president of the local branch of the LDS Relief Society, an organization with the sole purpose to help the very moochers Romney doesn’t have to worry about.

It’s going to be a tough sell trying to persuade an 85-year-old widow who lives on a meager Social Security check too small to tax that she should vote Republican. She’s on the dole, poor dear, and can’t be reached any more.

And it’s hard to talk a single mother who’s trying to get off welfare by working a minimum-wage job to finally take some responsibility for her life.

Or convincing a hedge-fund manager with a really good tax guy that, if you don’t pay any taxes, you’re a leech. No, wait. Scratch that last one. I forgot … it’s OK for job creators to pay nothing.

Anyone who’s paid attention knows that Romney didn’t misspeak when he characterized nearly half of the nation as losers. Romney is proud of what he said.

While Romney admitted that his presentation was a little rough, “it’s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way,” he stood by his premise.

“It’s a message which I’m going to carry and continue to carry, which is look, the president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as attractive to them.”

That’s what this campaign has been about. It’s a view of America that comes right out of Ayn Rand’s Darwinian dystopia.

What do you think all the ads about welfare reform are about? Or the mocking tone of “We built it.” Or the insistence that accepting food stamps is a moral failure?

Mitt Romney is running for president of an America where hard work only counts if it leads to success. And where success is only ever measured in dollars and is never enough. An America where we pretend that the accidents of wealth, health, race, class and gender don’t confer great advantages to the lucky ones. An America that only shows weakness when it extends a hand to those who’ve stumbled along the way. An America where anyone who doesn’t have a Super PAC is a loser.

Mitt, you can be president of your America. I’ll stick with the real one, the one where Democrats and Republicans alike work hard, pay their taxes, invest in their children, get help from their government, love their country, and pray for just the opportunity to succeed or to fail. The America where everyone — Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, anarchist and independent — gets the benefit of some government service, entitlement, grant, loan, contract or tax loophole.

We are the 100%.