The Washington bureau has compiled the biggest political plays of the year — the damaging gaffes and the somewhat successful gambits. Pay attention because we will ask you to vote for our Play of the Year.

Today is part one: The Gaffes.

The Play: The 47%

The problem: A video posted Sept. 17 on the website of liberal magazine Mother Jones showed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney telling donors at a private fundraiser earlier in 2012 that President Barack Obama already had sewn up 47% of the vote, with support from people unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. He said his “job is not to worry about those people.”

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president, no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims … These are people who pay no income tax,” Mr. Romney told the donors.

The result: The videotape went viral and derailed the Romney campaign’s effort to turn public attention back to the candidate’s economic program. Some of the legitimate points Mr. Romney may have been making—whether the tax base should be broadened and whether entitlement programs have grown too large to be sustained—were overshadowed by the way in which they were delivered. The comments could be read as unflattering to Obama supporters broadly and to millions of people who hold jobs and in many cases pay payroll taxes, but who don’t earn enough to pay income taxes.