Mitt Romney has been bitten by that 21st-century monster called “instant telecommunication.”

You know how it works. People in public life say things intended for only a privileged few, but someone in a room has a “smart phone” with a camera and an audio recorder. He or she captures the statements of the public person, and then leaks it to the media, who then blast it all over the planet. The intent is to embarrass the public person. And boy howdy, it worked in the latest case of Romney speaking from the heart.

He told a roomful of rich campaign donors that 47 percent of the electorate will vote for President Obama no matter what he (Romney) says. They consider themselves “victims,” the GOP presidential candidate said. They believe they are “entitled” to government services and, in effect, don’t feel the need to “take responsibility” for their plight.

Thus, Romney has lumped tens of millions of Americans under a single canopy, ignoring the circumstances that might have caused many of them to seek government assistance in the first place. Bad call, Mitt, especially when you declare to the donors that you don’t really care about the 47 percent of voters who you’ve lost.

Lesson to Mitt? Every single utterance is subjected to this kind of surveillance. Romney’s response that his words were spoken “inelegantly” doesn’t cut it.

In this age of instant communication, Gov. Romney, you’d better be on your elegant best behavior at all times. Then again, these moments of candor do reveal the true makeup of what’s in a candidate’s heart.