Romney booed on stage

Mitt Romney met with boos in NAACP speech

By Philip Rucker

HOUSTON — Wading into the heart of President Obama’s most supportive constituency Wednesday, Mitt Romney told members of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization that he would be a better president than Obama for black families.
But in his speech here before the NAACP, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee received the most hostile reception of his campaign so far and appeared visibly unsettled by three rounds of loud boos from audience members.

Republican Mitt Romney earned boos Wednesday at the NAACP annual meeting in Houston when he called for cutting “Obamacare,” criticized Obama’s jobs record and said he would be the “best president for the African American community.”

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“If you want a president who will make things better in the African American community, you are looking at him,” Romney said. When the crowd booed and hissed at him, Romney said, “You take a look.”
Romney made a direct appeal for support from black voters, who polls show overwhelmingly support reelection of the nation’s first black president. Romney said his policies were the right solutions to help black families succeed in a sputtering economy, with rising federal debt and poor schools.
Romney also highlighted his father’s civil rights legacy as governor of Michigan and tried to build a bridge with black voters by talking about their shared abiding faith in God and support of strong families.
“I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African American families, you would vote for me for president,” Romney said. “I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color – and families of any color – more than the policies and leadership of President Obama, I wouldn’t be running for president.”
Romney said black families have suffered disproportionately under the Obama presidency, noting that the unemployment rate for African Americans went up last month to 14.4 percent, while the overall rate was 8.2 percent.
“If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone,” Romney said. “Instead, it’s worse for African Americans in almost every way.”
Romney asked black voters to give him “a fair hearing” and promised that if he is elected president, and if the NAACP invited him to return, he would address the group next year and would “count it as a privilege.”
“In campaigns at their best, voters can expect a clear choice, and candidates can expect a fair hearing — only more so from a venerable organization like this one,” Romney said.
The hundreds of African Americans in attendance at the NAACP’s national convention in Houston gave Romney polite although subdued applause. But he received a loud and sustained spattering of boos when he referenced his opposition to the health-care law he called “Obamacare,” when he said Obama’s policies were not helping create jobs and when he said he would be a better president for black families.
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Although Romney appeared surprised by the boos, a campaign aide said he took it in stride, and his campaign advisers said they were not bothered by the reception he received. Indeed, they considered the speech gutsy. One adviser said privately that Romney has presented the same agenda to every audience since the start of the campaign and did not back down from advocating policies here that he knew black voters generally oppose, such as repealing Obama’s health-care overhaul.
“We understand that folks aren’t going to agree with us 100 percent, but at the end of the day, I think Governor Romney’s message was bold, he’s said things that needed to be said, he’s said things he’s always said about ending Obamacare and about bringing this economy back,” Tara Wall, the campaign’s black outreach adviser, told reporters.
Obama is not addressing the convention this year, although Vice President Biden is scheduled to speak to the group Thursday. The Obama campaign issued a statement arguing that Romney was “the wrong choice” for black families.
The Obama campaign responded by issuing a statement saying “African Americans can’t afford Romney Economics.”
“At the NAACP today, leaders in the African American community recognized the devastating impact Mitt Romney’s policies would have on working families,” campaign spokesman Clo Ewing said in a statement. “He’d gut investments in education, energy, and infrastructure, and raise taxes on the middle class even as he gives $5 trillion in tax cuts weighted towards millionaires and billionaires. He’d put insurance companies back in charge, threatening the health of more than 30 million Americans who will gain coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. And he refused to use the opportunity today to finally lay out a plan for improving health care or education in this country.”
Romney directly responded to attacks from the Democrats that he would only help the wealthiest Americans.
“The opposition charges that I and people in my party are running for office to help the rich,” Romney said. “Nonsense. The rich will do just fine whether I am elected or not. The president wants to make this a campaign about blaming the rich. I want to make this a campaign about helping the middle class.”
Soure:WP