TPM has the videos of Mitt Romney getting booed (multiple times!) during his speech to the NAACP today. The Fix speculates that Romney’s “combative tone” did him in with the crowd:
By contrast, Romney criticized Obama for running a negative campaign, said the president could not bring economic recovery, and said he would eliminate “non-essential, expensive” programs like “Obamacare.”
His only reference to the historic nature of Obama’s win was to say that “if someone had told us in the 1950s or 1960s that a black citizen would serve as the forty-fourth president, we would have been proud and many would have been surprised.”
When the crowd started to boo, the candidate shot back combatively, ‘‘If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him. You take a look.”
Romney was booed for two things: promising to eliminate Obamacare and promising that his policies would make things better in the black community. He probably didn’t go into this speech expecting to win over the left-leaning NAACP, and the response didn’t seem to catch him off guard. Obamacare is unpopular with the majority of Americans, and the headlines on tonight’s news will now note that Romney promised to repeal it — the fact that he was booed for doing so doesn’t make a difference there.
The NAACP also didn’t do itself any favors by booing Romney’s earnest and unobjectionable promise to “make things better in the African American community.”
African American leaders have long complained about Obama’s failure to address the unemployment problem in the black community, and criticized Obama for taking black support “for granted.” Well, why not, when Obama knows his political opponent will be automatically rejected by the NAACP and criticized by leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus? And why should future Republicans make an effort to address the NAACP — and support the organization’s political objectives — if they’re received with boos?
You can be sure Obama would start paying more attention to black unemployment if he thought Romney had a chance of cutting into his support. Judging from today, that’s not going to happen.
Oh sure.. the GOP want's to be nice and loving all the sudden… how adorable.. n nMaybe with this crowd he should of saved the Obamacare nonsense by using the name of the legislation.. n nMaybe just maybe, he should of has a better stump speech than 'I will repeal Obamacare and replace it with 'something'. n nHouston, we have real communication problem here.. the Governor isn't THAT out of touch is he?
It's not really going to hurt itself by booing Romney. Anyone who still believes the NAACP is a credible organization won't be bothered by this.
It is amazing how resilient our country is. President Obama is completely ineffective as both a politician (in terms of getting legislation passed) and a policy-maker (who proposes policy that even many Democrats would prefer not voting for). Yet, every day the sun still rises, 77 percent of us go to jobs that provide us enough pay and hours, and the USA still prospers. Imagine what we could have accomplished if John McCain or probably even Hillary Clinton were President over the last 3.5 years?
Governor Romney made a valiant effort before a very negative and closed minded group of voters. He was polite and reasonable and sought a genuine dialogue. He was met with rudeness, boos and an unwillingness to even consider him as a serious alternative to Obama. I was impressed very much with Mr. Romney's calm demeanor and his eloquent speech and, unfortunately, he received the response from the very liberal NAACP that I expected — hostility and rudeness.
My take: beyond that the NAACP discredited itself by some of its members booing a distinguished and invited guest just because those who jeered disagreed with him, and beyond Romney standing tall and strong despite the jeering, not pandering but saying firmly and straight-forwardly what was on his mind and what his positions are, both those things will help him with independent voters, I'm thinking.
Very good point.
Describing the NAACP as "left-leaning" is a wild understatement. The organization is hard left, and frankly quite socialist and often anti-American. n n
Whom exactly does the NAACP represent, and at what point will Black Americans realize that their love for their children (and desire to see them do better than they did) is greater than their ideological bigotry and grievances? The left has destroyed the Black family — a century ago, something like 80%/90% of the Black children in Harlem had TWO parents and the single mothers were widows, not unmarried pregnant teenagers. n nRomney needs to simplify his message: Money is green and Republicans would like to see you able to earn enough of it not only to survive but to be able to enjoy all the nice things that come with the green — and the Democrats need to have you remaining destitute and dependent so that they can come here every four years and be sure of getting your votes. n nIt is the Republican Party that abolished slavery, it is the Republican Party that passed the Civil Rights acts, and it is the Republican Party that would like to see you become rich.
Obama spending $30M on struggling schools – in Arab kingdom you think he cares about black Americans
Hi Zwick.. President Obama's 'well if you can't be em. join em' caviler attitude about the 'moniker' 'Obamacare' hardly has anything to do with an organization who obviously felt it was being said in contempt. The Governor was deliberately (seemingly) spitting it out right and left, like Yosemite Saw railing on about 'that waskly waaaabit'
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