We should be judging the presidential candidates by their actions and what comes out of their mouths… but everyone is asking if Mitt Romney donned brownface for his television appearance on Univision.
From message boards, to Gawker, Jezebel, MediaTakeOut and even Upworthy, a site that usually keeps things positive, pointed out Romney looked like he got a "bad spray tan."
Jezebel’s Erin Gloria Ryan asked: "Did Mitt Romney fucking seriously just wear brown makeup so Latin voters might think he’s tan enough to support?"
And then there’s MediaTakeOut, the gossip website that claims to be the most visited urban website in the world, they just called Romney out: "You see, dude tried to TRICK Hispanic voters into voting for him . . . by painting his face BROWN."
Huffington Post published a similar post shortly before the post you’re reading now went live also.
There’s a few posts on Tumblr that are also thriving.
"I was really really hoping that this wan’t [sic] true because this is pretty far for anyone, and I hoped it was a really bad tan where he covered his hands and didn’t turn over, but it literally stops at his jawbone. Just stops," wrote Tumblr user Whyvoneenee. "Go to 2:14 and look at that perfect line. What the blap?" Whyvoneenee wrote alongside a screen capture of the Univison forum.
In just 54 minutes, Whyvoneenee’s post got 1,500 notes on Tumblr, and there are hundreds of more posts and tweets making the same claim.
The venue and lighting at events has a lot to do with how Romney appears on video and still pictures and so there’s probably not a lot here, but we’ll let you be the judge. Below are pictures of Mitt Romney out on the campaign trail in past week or so, and please comment below and let us know what you think.
Wednesday, 9/19/12 Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participates in a Univision "Meet the Candidates" forum with Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas in Coral Gables, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
In the image below I took the AP photo and did a high-resolution side-by-side comparison of Romney’s face and hands. There is no significant change in skin tone.