This was the "smoking gun" that Romney hated poor people.
It was the narrative the Obama campaign wanted people to believe; Romney was a rich white man who declared war on women, caused his employees to die of cancer and wanted to blacks back in chains. But most importantly he hated poor people.
And to be fair, Romney gave them a ton of ammo. He was a gaffe machine - some taken out of context, but still no good optics. Examples: "I like being able to fire people," "Corporations are people my friend," "I'm not too concerned about the very poor," "My wife owns two Cadillacs," "These donuts are from the local 7-11 aren't they?" etc. etc.
So this was like THE statement that proved Obama's narrative. Obama won the "he cares about me" exit poll by like what, 80 points?
The Democrats tried the same thing with Trump, except instead of hating poor people (unlike Romney, Trump bragged about his wealth so the "hates poor people" argument would be ineffective) they tried to bring up the war on women. Megyn Kelly gave a preview of it in the first debate, and the Access Hollywood tape was meant to be the "smoking gun."
Trump IMO lucked out on having his opponent's spouse be Bill Clinton. A lot of people felt it was hypocritical to attack Trump on that because of what Bill did.
And yes, I see what you're saying - the 2012 election will seem like a blur because it's sandwiched in between 2008 and 2016.
