{"id":284,"date":"2012-07-14T17:10:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T00:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/?p=284"},"modified":"2012-07-14T17:10:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T00:10:12","slug":"romney-booed-by-the-naacp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/?p=284","title":{"rendered":"Romney Booed by the NAACP"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing you can say about Mitt Romney, he\u2019s the only GOP candidate to criticize the Black candidate to the faces of the NAACP. Perhaps he was pandering, but to another group. Romney was booed several times, including when he indicated he was the best President for African Americans <\/a>. \u00a0However, the spin could be that Romney was gutsy in advocating an agenda that opposes most of what Black voters support. In the opinion of Tara Wall, the campaign\u2019s black-outreach adviser, \u201c\u2026I think Governor Romney\u2019s message was bold, he\u2019s said things that needed to be said, he\u2019s said things he\u2019s always said\u2026\u201d This conservative version of \u2018telling truth to power\u2019 certainly has to appeal to the more reactionary factions of Romney\u2019s base. Does that perspective have that \u2018put them back in their place\u2019 feel to it?<\/p>\n

Yet even in this case there are more implications of deception on the part of Romney. In the link to the Washington Post article above, Romney is quoted as saying, \u201cI don\u2019t give different speeches to different audiences, all right?\u201d Romney said. \u201cI gave them the same speech. When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare, they weren\u2019t happy. .\u2009.\u2009. That\u2019s okay. I want people to know what I stand for, and if I don\u2019t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else. That\u2019s just fine.\u201d These are Romney’s comments at a fundraiser in Montana. On the other hand, Bill Negrin notes \u201cHe pitched his candidacy to the NAACP in a speech sprinkled with \u2026 reminders of his own cooperation with Democrats during his time as governor in liberal Massachusetts, and promises to lead on civil rights if elected… it was a speech he never could have delivered during the radical GOP primary, when the mere mention of bipartisanship was all but a disqualifier.\u201d Someone might argue that it\u2019s obvious you tailor your speech to your audience. While this is true in a general way, at the highest levels of governance, everything must stand up to extra scrutiny.<\/p>\n

There are those who think of Romney speaking before the NAACP was an act of stepping above politics. The spin on the appearance<\/a>, to quote Kasie Hunt of the Associated Press, is designed to \u201c\u2026 show independent and swing voters that he’s willing to reach out to diverse audiences, while demonstrating that his campaign and the Republican Party<\/a> he leads are\u00a0inclusive.\u201d Never the less, the correlation between the comments of the various Republican representatives reveals the existence of nothing more than talking points. CNN Political Reporter Shannon Travis wrote, \u201c ‘I think it does send a very strong message<\/a> of inclusiveness,\u2019\u00a0 said CNN contributor and Republican strategist Anna Navarro. \u2018It’s not easy to go into a tough crowd and Mitt Romney is showing that he can reach out to a tough crowd. He will go in and say the same thing to different groups even if it’s not popular.\u2019 \u201d She echoes the spin that he talks the same talk everywhere. Present also is the spin that speaking at the NAACP was an opportunity to stand in front of the Blacks and tell them the way it will be.\u00a0 Romney represents a return to a society that said essentially, we don’t like you and if you don’t like the way the country treats you, leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing you can say about Mitt Romney, he\u2019s the only GOP candidate to criticize the Black candidate to the faces of the NAACP. Perhaps he was pandering, but to another group. Romney was booed several times, including when he indicated he was the best President for African Americans . \u00a0However, the spin could be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newcarthagechronicles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}