COSTA MESA, Calif. — Mitt Romney held a hastily arranged press conference here to engage in damage control hours after a May video of him surfaced at a private fundraiser describing 47 percent of the country as “dependent upon the government.”

The GOP nominee for president defended his remarks — first printed in the liberal magazine Mother Jones — while conceding they were not “elegantly stated.”

“I am sure I can state it more clearly and effectively than I did in a setting like that,” he told reporters assembled quickly at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, before attending a fundraiser.

via Mitt Romney defends video: Not ‘elegantly stated’ – Ginger Gibson and Anna Palmer – POLITICO.com.