HOUSTON – Making the most prominent appearance in front of a largely black audience of his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney criticized President Obama’s record on education and the economy at the NAACP’s national convention and boldly declared he was the candidate who represented the “real, enduring best interest of African-American families.”
“If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him,” Romney said, causing many in crowd to boo.
The mood in the room was tense. Most of Romney’s 25-minute speech was greeted with silence and muted applause by the largely pro-Obama crowd. But the Republican candidate drew boos several times from the audience of more than 1,000, the loudest when he declared his plans to repeal “Obamacare,” the term he used to describe the national health care law passed by the president.
It was one of many broadsides Romney directed at Obama, not holding back from his usual criticisms because of the audience.
“I don’t trust him,” said Lu Dale of Dayton, a conference attendee who had joined the boos of Romney.
In front of a crowd that was almost entirely black, Romney emphasized he wanted to campaign in front of all Americans, even if he is unlikely to win their votes. About 95 percent of blacks voted for Obama in 2008, and the president remains very popular in the African-American community.
“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 would not be running for president.”
Romney’s remarks were much different than those he gives in front of largely-white crowds, as he pointedly emphasized his education reform ideas, which make it easier for students to attend charter and private schools. He noted that millions of African-American children attend low-performing schools. And he reeled off data to illustrate the economic challenges African-Americans are facing.
“If someone had told us in the 1950s or 60s that a black citizen would serve as the forty-fourth president, we would have been proud and many would have been surprised. Picturing that day, we might have assumed that the American presidency would be the very last door of opportunity to be opened,” Romney said. “Before that came to pass, every other barrier on the path to equal opportunity would surely have to come down.”
He added, “Of course, it hasn’t happened quite that way. Many barriers remain. Old inequities persist. … If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone. Instead, it’s worse for African-Americans in almost every way. The unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment, average income, and median family wealth are all worse for the black community. In June, while the overall unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for African Americans actually went up, from 13.6 percent to 14.4 percent.”
But the speech was more remarkable for the setting than his remarks. Politicians rarely campaign in front of audiences where it is possible that almost no one in the room will vote for them. But while the NAACP is officially a non-partisan organization, the audience was highly Democratic and pro-Obama.
George W. Bush spoke to the NAACP’s convention in 2000, as did GOP presidential nominee John McCain in 2008, but those speeches came before the extraordinary events of the last three years: the election of a black president, the emergence of a Tea Party movement that many Democrats feel is motivated by racial animus, and an increasing polarization of the electorate into essentially a Democratic Party dominated by minorities and young voters versus a GOP that is older and whiter.
“You all know something of my background, and maybe you’ve wondered how any Republican ever becomes governor of Massachusetts in the first place. Well, in a state with 11 percent Republican registration, you don’t get there by just talking to Republicans. We have to make our case to every voter. We don’t count anybody out, and we sure don’t make a habit of presuming anyone’s support. Support is asked for and earned – and that’s why I’m here today,” Romney said, in describing why he made the appearance.
Romney aides said the candidate came to the NAACP in part because in a very close election, as this November’s is expected to be, even a tiny shift in the black vote to Romney in a state like Ohio could determine the winner overall.
Making the speech here could also help Romney with moderate, white voters who may be wary of the GOP’s lack of diversity, both in its politicians and voters.
Tara Wall, a Romney adviser, said the boos didn’t surprise them, noting “you know people aren’t going to agree with you 100 percent.”
“He got more applause than boos,” she said.
Romney said little about a slew of issues that African-American activists have raised concerns about: the slim number of minority appointees to his administration when he was governor of Massachusetts, his appearance earlier this year with Donald Trump, who has made a number of controversial remarks about the president, or his opposition to affirmative action.
“At the NAACP today, leaders in the African-American community recognized the devastating impact Mitt Romney’s policies would have on working families,” said Clo Ewing, an Obama campaign spokeswoman.
In his speech, Romney praised the NAACP as an organization and pledged to attend the convention next year if he is elected president. He quoted Martin Luther King, Jr and Frederick Douglas and invoked his father George, who marched for civil rights and pushed anti-discrimination legislation as governor of Michigan in the 1960’s.
If elected president, “your hospitality will be returned, we will know one another,” he said.
After the speech, convention attendees had not exactly been convinced.
“He’s not his father, he’s the antithesis of his father,” said Bruce Morgan, head of the New Brunswick, New Jersey chapter of the civil rights organization.
Follow Perry Bacon Jr. on Twitter at @perrybaconjr