TAMPA, Fla. — The Romney campaign isn’t going to admit that its outrageous welfare ad, falsely accusing President Obama of gutting the welfare-to-work requirement, is a nakedly racial appeal to white working-class voters. (Tom Edsall’s expert dissection this morning makes that clear.)

The usual procedure in these cases is just to let such an ad do its dirty work and not discuss it. But Mitt Romney went an extra step in an interview with USA Today, saying the ad was accurate and that Mr. Obama’s (non-existent) opposition to the work requirement was designed to “shore up his base.”

That’s a ludicrous charge on several dozen levels. For one thing, if Mr. Obama intended his welfare waiver as a political trumpet blast to his base, he had a very strange way of showing it. The actual waivers – which do nothing more than give states some flexibility in dealing with the work requirement, as long as they move 20 percent more people back to work – were never publicly announced by the administration. They were originally dug out of federal regulations by conservative welfare ideologues who smelled smoke where there was no fire, and were then seized upon by an opportunistic presidential campaign.



In addition, the waivers were actually a response to a request for flexibility by governors, including several Republicans. Not exactly a base that the president needs to shore up.

But who, exactly, does Mr. Romney think the president is trying to appeal to by supposedly handing out welfare checks like Christmas candy, with no strings attached? He apparently thinks Mr. Obama’s base is made up largely of welfare recipients longing to be freed of their work requirements, or people who aspire to get on welfare. Apparently, when he thinks of Democrats, he thinks only of poor people, or black people, or Hispanic people, or an undifferentiated mass longing for “free stuff.” (That’s what he suggested N.A.A.C.P. members wanted a few weeks ago.)

Related The G.O.P. Convention Dispatches and quick takes from Tampa.

It’s a stunningly retrograde view of the Democratic base, one that neglects to mention that the work requirement was signed into law by a president who remains hugely popular among that base, Bill Clinton. But it comes from the same mentality that thinks you can win the presidency by persuading working-class voters that Democrats are still trying to unleash the welfare hordes. Both views are warped and deeply cynical.