So, what does floundering GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Pennsylvania voter disenfranchisement proponent Rep. Daryl Metcalfe and a box of popular corn muffin mix all have in common?

Each is deceptive!

Romney, in yet another foot-in-mouth moment, pontificated his feeling that 47 percent of the American voting public believes they are “victims.”

Those people, in Mitt’s mindset, hold the “government” responsible to “care for them” by providing health care, food, housing and everything else …“you name-it.”

Never mind that nearly half of America’s voting public doesn’t view themselves as victims and don’t depend on government to provide their basic needs.

In the mind of Mitt, too many in America have an entitlement mindset.

This is the deceptive mindset of an ungratefully wealthy man who sees no entitlement in his paying a much lower tax rate on his fortune than the tax rates paid by 47,000 average, hard-working Americans earning far less collectively.

Metcalfe, in his own foot-in-mouth moment, embraced Mitt’s 47 percent slam to defend his Pa. voter ID law proclaiming the controversial measure now back before Commonwealth Court will only disenfranchise “lazy” people.

Metcalfe, a Republican legislator from outside Pittsburgh, popped off during a radio interview last week that similar to Mitt’s comment about 47 percent of people “living off the public dole” he believes that people in Pa., who don’t have proper voter ID, “are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need.”

Never mind that people across Pennsylvania are encountering difficulties with just physically getting to the few state offices issuing the ID cards — and once there, encounter long delays due to too few staff at those offices and/or staff who are uneducated on what they need to do with Metcalfe’s ID law.

In the deceptive mindset of Metcalfe, robbing people of their constitutional right to vote with a measure based on an allegation of in-person voting fraud — which facts show doesn’t exist in Pennsylvania — is no big deal because if people are too lazy to get ID cards, “the state can’t fix that.”

So, how does that corn muffin mix fit with the warped mindsets of Mitt and Metcalfe?

Surprisingly (and deceptively) the main ingredient in one of the most popular corn muffin mixes is wheat flour.

Never mind that people with allergies to wheat often turn to corn muffins to satisfy their bread itch without knowing that the key ingredient in the muffin mix is wheat flour — the substance they are trying to avoid.

And never mind that the fourth ingredient in that popular corn muffin mix is lard — yes, the material made from pig fat … hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated lard (pig fat).

Pig fat in corn muffin mix presents a small problem for people who don’t eat pork still consuming pork without their knowledge.

Now, to the Daryl Metcalfes of the legislative world, the problem is not unexpected or unhealthy ingredients in food but the fact that people don’t read the labels on food packages to see what’s in the food they buy.

Never mind that the printing on most food package labels is so small that most people need glasses (or magnifying glasses) to read.

The Metcalfes and Romneys favor increased deregulation that allows corporations to do what corporations deem best for the respective corporate profits even if that “best” includes, for example, deleting that small type on packages listing ingredients if a corporations claims it costs too much to print that small type on a package.

Many food manufacturing corporations now utilize food stuffs from plants genetically modified by other corporations.

Corporations say genetically modified plants are not dangerous to human health — although GMO products can cause ugly tumors and other bad stuff in lab rats.

Many genetically modified plants (including corn and soybeans) are those that are chemically altered in seed form to produce resistance to weed killer poisons enabling the spraying of weed killers without damaging the cash crop.

It’s a proven fact that weed killers pollute the environment — however some contend the solid medical evidence on adverse health impacts from GMO remains inconclusive.

Some claim climate change/global warming is fake despite damning changes in weather that evidence proves is caused by carbon pollution from humans.

Last week alarms were raised about dangers from American-grown rice having hi-levels of arsenic in it — arsenic arising from weed killers poured on the land where the rice is grown when that land was used to grow cotton decades ago. Apparently the weed killers don’t wash away in the rain but stick in the soil.

There is a political battle in California where some folks want food manufacturers to put a notice on food products containing GMO.

Major food manufacturers are opposing the GMO notice that many European countries require.

Major food manufacturers and their supporters, including GMO seed manufacturer Monsanto, have dumped over $32 million into defeating the California labeling referendum known as Proposition 37.

This labeling battle over GMOs and use of the word “natural” (no “natural” on unnatural products) is another one of the battlegrounds where wealth (individual and corporate) is seeking to bash the public in the interest of corporate profits.

No surprise that some wealth (individual/corporate) supports voter suppression measures like Metcalfe pushes and tax breaks for the rich that Romney wants.

This presidential race extends far beyond Democrats or Republicans occupying the White House.

Linn Washington Jr. is a graduate of the Yale Law Journalism Fellowship Program.