THROUGHOUT the Republican primaries, and on through their party convention, one of the most commonly heard questions on the political talk shows was, “Who is the real Mitt Romney?”

Is it the self-proclaimed supporter of a woman’s right to choose and gay rights that ran against Ted Kennedy for the Massachusetts senate seat back in 1994, or the “seriously conservative” fan of constitutional amendments to restrict them which we heard from in the primaries?

Is it the man who, as governor of Massachusetts, implemented a universal healthcare system that served as the template for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, or is it the campaigner who has vowed to “repeal Obamacare on day one of my administration?”

Is it the turn-around artist and job creator portrayed by his supporters, or the ruthless buy-out artist who cares about nothing but his own profits portrayed by his detractors?

Well ... now we know.

Through his own words, Mitt Romney has shown us that those who saw him as a kind of cartoon caricature of an out-of-touch Thurston Howell or Richie Rich, a child of privilege who was born on third base and thought he had hit a triple, a man who has no idea at all of the struggles ordinary working class families go through – and couldn’t care less ... those folks had it exactly right.

Speaking to a small gathering of simpatico multi-millionaires at a $50,000-a-plate fundraising dinner hosted by fellow private equity fund manager Marc Leder (famous in New York gossip columns for the lavish orgy-like parties he apparently holds, replete with scantily clad Russian dancing girls and public sex), Romney actually said:

“There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

In one fell swoop, he dismissed nearly half of the American population as nothing but a bunch of worthless moochers, who like nothing better but to sit on their butts and wait for government handouts.

Give me a break!

Romney seems to forget how many of these lazy goof-offs are in fact senior citizens, wounded veterans, single parents working two jobs and still living near the poverty line, students, and those who lost their jobs when they were outsourced to China by people like him.

The great irony of it is, of course, that many of these folks ... the working poor ... actually pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than Mitt Romney does himself. They may not pay income tax, but that is just one of the ways our government collects from us. Payroll taxes alone are more than 15 percent. That’s above the 13 percent Romney paid in the one year he has been willing to let us know about ... and it doesn’t even take into account things like sales, property and gas taxes, which add up to a far higher percentage of income for the poor and working class than they do for millionaires and billionaires.

And let’s not even get started on what Romney had to say at the event about Latinos and Palestinians, and how he would basically trash the Middle East peace process.

The title of Mitt Romney’s book might have been “No Apologies,” but it’s about time he started.

Here on Guam, this might also be a good time for Gov. Calvo and Frank Blas Jr. to start rethinking their support of him.