Curmudgeon's Corner

Romney and the NAACP

Posted by Al Campbell on July 12, 2012

U.S., Political, Employment, Economy, Quality of Life

Mitt Romney walked into the mouth of the storm yesterday as he met with and spoke to members of the NAACP in Houston.  The sound bites we will hear for weeks will be the cut of boos and hisses following his statement that he would overturn ObamaCare if elected to the Presidency.  A follow-up comment later in his speech indicating he would create jobs and mentioning the loss of jobs due to ObamaCare, if it were permitted to go forward, drew few if any boos or hisses.  He refused to back down before a politically prejudiced audience and actually seemed to gain a bit of respect from an audience no one would predict would embrace him.

Next up will be Vice President Joe Biden who will stand in for the first black President of the United States who, for some reason, is unable or unwilling to speak to this group of seemingly staunch supporters.  There is little doubt that VP Biden will be loudly cheered, even if he has a gaffe or two along the way.

The liberal media, which obviously is just about all of the media, will spin this appearance as a huge loss for Romney, or as a calculated and cynical ploy or both.  He will receive no plaudits from the majority of the press.

I would venture the opinion that he knew exactly what he was doing and that this was anything but a cynical decision.  I would venture the opinion that Mitt Romney gained stature among almost all voters, not just some black voters, and not just conservative voters.  I would venture the opinion that Romney is not the cold and calculating person he is portrayed as being by some.  There are, frankly, many jobs in our country today that wouldn’t have existed if not for the intervention or initiation by Bain during Romney’s career there.  The damning of all things initiated by venture capital firms and turn-around firms fails to recognize the stabilization and creation of new jobs outnumbering those jobs that might’ve been lost leading up to regained profitability. 

Eugene Kane, in his column today, ponders if Romney’s use of the phrase “ObamaCare” was an intentional snubbing of the audience; he wonders if the use of the phrase “Affordable Health Care act” might not have been better suited.  I suspect that the very common usage of the term “ObamaCare” is why that was used.  What began as a decided pejorative to describe this law has become the recognized shorthand version name of the law.  Even ‘She’ who would have had this law passed to enable us to have the opportunity to learn what was in it has used the term “ObamaCare” before the camera.

Frankly, if it is the cold, calculating cynic who uses devious ploys that we want in the White House, we already have him.  Romney was refreshing in his appearance before the NAACP and, if anything, gained prospective votes yesterday.