Mitt Romney will be speaking to the NAACP’s national convention today, and as Adam Serwer reminds us, Mitt’s relationship with the oldest civil rights group in the country was downright tragic when he was governor.
Leonard Alkins, the former head of the Boston NAACP, has few fond memories of Romney’s tenure. “There was no relationship between the NAACP in Boston and Governor Mitt Romney and his administration,” Alkins says. “The only time that the NAACP had any interaction with the administration and the governor was to protest when he eliminated the affirmative action office.”
In one of his early acts as governor, Romney dumped the state’s office of affirmative action and replaced it with the office of diversity and equal opportunity. In doing so, he invalidated half a dozen executive orders establishing affirmative action policies for women, minorities, veterans, and people with disabilities; diversity training programs; and equal opportunity standards for state contractors. Romney’s executive order replaced all of this with what was essentially a broad—and, Alkins says, “toothless”—commitment to “diversity.”
Romney didn’t inform civil rights groups about his plans before scrapping the affirmative action office, and the reaction from activists was harsh. The Massachusetts Black Caucus accused Romney of attempting to “virtually dismantle affirmative action in Massachusetts state government.”
So yes, I fully expect nothing but stony silence and sideeyes from the assembled. Romney apparently wants to talk about how Republicans are going to be better than Democrats on the issue of black unemployment, to which I say: “there’s a chart for that Mitt.”
Black unemployment has long, long been about double what white unemployment has been. And under Republican presidents that number has gotten significantly worse (Reagan, Poppy Bush, Dubya) while under Democrats, the number has decreased (and yes, it’s dropped from that 16.0% under Obama).
Hell, unemployment fell under Carter, supposedly the worst President in the universe until the swarthy gentleman from Kenya showed up. The Reagan recession? If Obama’s a failure and doesn’t deserve a second term based on where black unemployment was at the height of the recession, well…ol’ Gipper is not your best data point here.
If black voters are supposed to choose between Republicans and Democrats based on black unemployment, I’m really thinking Romney should try to find and use a different argument before he opens his mouth today and tells folks just how great Republicans are for African-Americans like me.
[UPDATE] The Cliffs Notes version of the speech:“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,” the presumptive GOP nominee will say. “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.”
Oh, if sideeyes could kill…
jh
I can’t wait to see footage of this fiasco.
I wonder if Mitt has any idea how little regard most of the African-American community has for the GOP, or will he walk in and start his speech with “You people…..”
PeakVT
Can’t see how Romney’s attempt to drive a wedge between Obama and the black community will do anything but backfire in the black community. OTOH, the Replicant base will lap it up.
beltane
Mitt’s pitch won’t work because the GOP’s plan to reduce unemployment among African-Americans (and others) amounts to a return to some form of slavery. See, if the nanny state didn’t force employers to pay wages for time worked we would have full employment in this country.
Ben Cisco
Popcorn at the ready…virtual sideeye torpedo armed.
Scott S.
“SALUTATIONS, MY HOMIES! WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? NO, SERIOUSLY, SOMEONE RELEASED SOME DOGS FROM THE ROOF OF MY CAR, AND I WANT TO KNOW WHICH OF YOU N-WORDS DID IT.”
amk
mitt to NAACP – Vote for me. If you got one.
NonyNony
@jh:
It will be tightly scripted, and Mitt will not go off script. The script will be EXTREMELY vetted – probably the most vetted thing he’s done so far – and there will be no gaffes.
He’ll look completely uncomfortable and the optics will be terrible, but there’s a near zero percent chance of a verbal gaffe in this speech of that nature.
And if one does show up then his campaign is even less disciplined than I’ve been believing it is and his chances of winning in November with a campaign that can’t handle this drop to “severely improbable without a global catastrophe on November 1st”.
Seriously – he could skip this the way W skipped it. He knows his votes from the AA community are going to be in the McCain range. If he’s doing this his team has to have prepped him for it. So while it will look awkward I doubt any major outrages will come of it.
Mino
@amk: Heh.
c u n d gulag
Mitt, the whitest rich man in America to meet with the NAACP.
Nothing can go wrong there, huh?
Especially if he brings along his pal Donald Trump who’s, you know, “good with the black.”
This should be great for an ocean of sh*ts and giggles.
kd bart
In Mitt’s place will be Holgram Tupac.
eric
from TPM, this is Michael Steele:
“The RNC has done very little since I left office to expand on the work that we had done in this area. They’ve got a website, God bless them. It’s always good to put a website up with some black faces on it.”
OUCH.
Culture of Truth
“So, how many of you vacation in the Hamptons? New Hampshire? Utah?”
[ crickets ]
..whew, tough crowd..”
eric
@beltane: That slavery kinnard is blatant liberal racism. You have no basis in fact for that slandarous accusation. As Floridians can tell you, TB is the tool of choice, not slavery. Sheesh
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@eric:
Michael Steele is scolding the GOP for not doing more for Blacks? Dude, go holler at the clouds. It’ll do as much good.
El Cid
__
You know what no one ever mentions? The Nixon / Ford recession. Carter took office after that recession. He took over from a shit economy — Nixon’s Communist wage & price controls, it would be known if the Kenyonesian usurper had done it.
But that part of history must vanish — it must be remembered as things going swimmingly until the hippies destroyed our Vietnam pride and Jimmy Carter caused price rises by letting all those Arabs jack up gas prices because he gave a speech about winter being cold and maybe wearing a sweater.
Unemployment declined under Carter every year until Volcker started to crank up interest rates in order to defeat “inflation” — not the consumer pricing based inflation most people think it means, but the wage-price inflation, in which the nation must lose its shit in order to battle wages rising too much.
When Jimmy Carter took office in January of 1977, unemployment was 7.5%; within two years it was down to 5.6%.
Thankfully, there is no longer any such thing as a wage-price spiral threat since wages never rise any more and unions are fairly weak as far as their ability to effect rising overall rates of pay.
Yay!
texascowgirl
Rmoney; “I like collard greens and hammy hocks!”
NotMax
It’s 7/11.
But Mitt will still crap out.
Don’t think he’ll go far as to state the “one of his best friends” is Herman Cain, though.
beltane
@c u n d gulag: And if the Donald can’t make it, maybe his hairpiece can.
eric
Mitt to audience member: “I know i shouldn’t say this as a white man, but you can’t spell motherfucking technology.”
One of my favorite stand-up comedy moments.
Another Halocene Human
Look at those Clinton years. Clinton earned that epithet, first Black president.
The bad thing about the Bush data is that it doesn’t show you that even when employed (remember, there was a bubble going on), African-American households were losing ground from 2000 on, giving back gains going back to the 1970’s. And that was BEFORE the bubble burst.
The difference in the 1990s is that as rotten as the Republicans were, they worked with Clinton on fixing the budget and the economy. Oh, and the recession in 1990 was nowhere near as bad. The big crash was in commercial real estate, the fraud wasn’t as large… you can thank Robert Rubin and the other scumbags Clinton let in on his 2nd term who shredded up Glass-Steagal for that.
Another Halocene Human
@Another Halocene Human: Although to be fair, had Clinton not done that I’m sure Bush would have taken care of it first thing. It’s not like the bought-off Senate was objecting. Even the Dems were on the take (Dodd, Lieberman).
cmorenc
Romney actually does have a few key practical goals to achieve with black voters in 2012:
1) He knows he’s going to be unable to persuade the vast majority of them to vote for him; nevertheless, if he can siphon off even two to four percent of black voters from D to R in key swing states, that might be enough to tip some of those states to him in a close election.
2) He has to put on the appearance of at least making an effort to win black and other minority votes, in order to minimize the impression of running a tactically racist campaign.
3) Minimize the electoral impact of blacks and latino voters he cannot win over by his allies in states with GOP-dominated legislatures passing restrictive voting laws that disproportionately disenfranchise democratic-leaning groups.
If this strategy didn’t work at least a little bit, the GOP wouldn’t have clowns like Alan West or Herman Cain to parade about on stage.
Culture of Truth
“I love black people. Some of my best relatives owned them.”
Another Halocene Human
@eric: Oh, snap!
He could say similar in outreach to young people. Trolling the RNC website was good times when he was chairman. And where are RNC PR BS’s backslapping shots with the interns?
Steele may be a sociopathic, rich, self-interested dick, but he made partisan politics fun.
scav
@texascowgirl: I thought I heard collard greenbacks, but yes :)
Baud
Slightly OT question. Where does the term “near” come from as in the phrase “the president is near”? I get from context it has to do with race, but I can’t find its origins.
Thanks.
NotMax
@Baud
Blazing Saddles
“The sheriff’s a ni-(mumble).”
“What did he say?”
“He said the sheriff is near.”
Zandar
@Culture of Truth:
OK, I laughed at that one.
eric
@Baud:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw
Another Halocene Human
@El Cid: The way JK Galbraith told it, the problem with Nixon’s price controls was that he was fucking inept at it and was never able to get cooperation or effectiveness.
Also, EVERY big war leads to currency devaluation–Revolution, Civil War, Vietnam, fuck it, Iraq–or a massive debt overhang (WWII–but of course we got lucky after that one because Hitler smashed up all the competition’s physical plant).
Note for a profitable war: have an enemy who smashes up all the productive capacity of leading nations except, of course, your own.
El Cid
@Another Halocene Human:
The Daily Show muppet Steel was so awesome.
Baud
@NotMax: @eric:
Oh wow. It’s been too long since I’ve seen that movie. Thanks.
eric
more cause it is so good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JOGmXpe5I&feature=fvwrel
texascowgirl
@Culture of Truth:
That made me laugh, but I am once again struck by how the son is not like the father. George Romney had some real courage when it came to standing up for civil rights, against his party and his church. He actually walked out of the convention in 1964 when Goldwater was nominated. When you compare Mitt his pops he comes up short in damn near every way. I think I would have liked his father, but I have come to loath Willard.
El Cid
@Another Halocene Human: Sure, much was going on — the war was particularly damaging to the US economy, and was what aided the (massively [both internally and U.S.-subsidized & market-favored) Asian export economies to surge to be such US competitors.
But just from the right wing freedum partisan-constructed history, it’s absolutely amazing that that just all vanishes, and it’s just everything going more or less alright until Jimmy Carter and the hippies and the Arabs they loved destroyed America until Ronald Reagan’s tears formed the Grand Canyon and then he said ‘Let there be Morning’ and America was created, the end, until Barack Obama became the Antichrist who would destroy America, The End.
jayjaybear
@Baud: Blazing Saddles. When Cleavon Little first rides into town, there’s a group of townsfolk on the steps of the church? town hall? some building with a belltower, and when they realize who he is, they start shouting “The sheriff is a ni” and the belltower goes off in the middle of the word, so it sounds like “niCLANGer”. If you take the “CLANG” out, it’s “near”, more or less. That’s also why you’ll occasionally see “The president is a ni-CLANG”.
Cacti
Mitt Romney: finding black people officially not cursed by God since 1978.
Another Halocene Human
@cmorenc: I respectfully disagree.
He needs to swing 2-4% of the entire voting population, which would be much more than 2-4% of Black voters. He’s going to achieve that through voter suppression, not persuasion. 15% of the electorate in Philly alone, from what I’ve heard.
I doubt it. GWBush gave this a miss. Of course, Bush had Rove, who pursued the racist voter openly. Romney has different advisors and comes from a different world. Perhaps he’s covering a perceived weakness in that the Mormons would not consider Blacks to be full members of the Church until the late 1970’s. (Their skin color proved they weren’t saved.)
Bingo.
Allen West and Herman Cain are not a strategy. There have always been the Blacks who court the far-right vote but in the past they couldn’t get any traction (Alan Keyes, the guy Obama trounced in Illinois). They started getting interest because of Obama. It’s been speculated that this has to do with some psychology on the part of far-right conservative voters who are sensitive to the perception that they’re racist (or sexist, hence the worship of Palin and other nutty conservative women). It certainly isn’t a concerted strategy on the part of the RNC (watch how they put Steele in there and then unceremoniously yanked him out). Cain, for one, never expected to be a front-runner–he was selling books and trying to up his ratings on his radio show.
NotMax
On the plus side, Romney almost for sure won’t use Santorum’s “blah people” phraseology.
Another Halocene Human
@El Cid: I’m too young to understand why Carter was “the worst president ever”. It seems like with so many issues I’m interested in, the Carter admin did some cool stuff and then Reagan came in and ruined it all.
quannlace
Ha. On NPR just now they were talking about the House’s pointless vote to rescind the ACA, for the 30th time! Before I could even say it, they had a quote from a Democratic senator, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Think that sums up the Republican party these days.
Another Halocene Human
@El Cid: And Reagan sucked. Lionizing him seems to be an act of willful delusion.
Robin G.
This has nothing to do with siphoning a single black vote. Mitt only wants to give wiggle room to his white voters who might get squishy during the revolting campaign that is to follow. “Okay, the guy I want to vote for is being supported by the Klan, but he talked to the NAACP, so he CAN’T be racist, so I can’t be racist either! Whew, almost felt uncomfortable there for a minute…”
Southern Beale
Today’s New York Times has an op-ed about changing the way we discuss the economy, using new metaphors, and I just thought: shoot me now.
PeakVT
@Another Halocene Human: Reagan made people feel good; Carter didn’t. Add in a lot of Republican propaganda and you have the myths we live today. The specifics of policy are, of course, irrelevant.
RSA
I appreciate the wordplay; also, I like that there’s a “toxic” in “Mittxotic”.
Cacti
@PeakVT:
Fix’t
japa21
Is he going to accept questions? If so, he is toast.
amk
@Robin G.: Bingo. Yup, it’s all fucking optics for the fucking swing voter.
kindness
I’m looking forward to Mitt’s presenting himself today. I mean, he’ll still drag out the ‘Obama has made the economy worse’ & ‘Obama has increased unemployment’. Yea so what if it isn’t true. He uses that wretched line everywhere. That is his schtick.
No, what I’m looking to get gleeful on is he’ll have to give his schtick w/o the scary blackity, black, black that is also his go to subtle message. I mean, I would howl if he does pull it but think Mitt’s smarter than that. I guess it will depend upon whether Mitt’s handlers think talking to non-caucasians is useful in and of itself or if they will use this to broadcast their less than subtle subtext to their base.
We’ll see won’t we?
Phil Perspective
@texascowgirl: How is Willard any different than Evan Bayh?
Culture of Truth
Ghostbusting made people feel good.
amk
@japa21: If he does, the first question should be “govnor, what do you think of voter suppression law in PA ? Do you support it?”
Culture of Truth
Romney is going to tell them that contrary to what their lying eyes are telling them, Obama is bad for jobs, caused the recession and is wrecking the economy, while the GOP is great for jobs, poor people, minorities and equal rights.
It’s going to be very hard to do that without coming across as condescending, even more so when you’re a stiff rich white guy who can barely relate to mere white millionaires.
maya
Willard’s gonna tell the NAACP that he will soon be proposing Don Cornelius for Latter Day Sainthood to the Elders.
AliceBlue
@texascowgirl:
“Oh, and cheesy grits! Mustn’t forget the cheesy grits! Strange things are happening to me!!
Culture of Truth
Obama will not speak to the NAACP this year, he is sending Biden instead. It’s like this year’s theme is Old White Dudes
Chris
@Another Halocene Human:
Republicans need an idol. Who else was it going to be? Bush II was a disaster, Eisenhower was a big government liberal, Nixon was a disaster and a big government liberal, Bush I had to take the fall for Reagan’s disasters, and no one remembers what anyone before FDR did.
But yeah, it’s an act of willful delusion, not just in terms of what it gives Reagan credit for (“defeating the Soviet Union,” Christ what a crock) but in terms of deluding themselves that Reagan is the sort of politician they could have voted for today. In the whitewashed version of history, Reagan never raised taxes, never gave amnesty to illegal immigrants, never passed pro-abortion laws, never talked with America’s enemies, never negotiated with terrorists and certainly never cut and run in the face of terrorist attacks.
jayboat
“I do love listening to that organ music.”
Valdivia
Maybe he will come in and say Obama is the real outsourcer in chief and the guy who is keeping women, blacks and latinos down. I see that his whole campaign is going to be to take what Obama says and just throw it back at him. WTF?
This and their ‘bracketing’ strategy to follow Obama around just telegraphs–we have no ideas, we will just do what the other guy does. I simply do not understand it. Can someone explain it to me.
NonyNony
@Culture of Truth:
Hey now, let’s not expect the impossible from Mitt. He comes across as condescending even to the majority of voters who are going to vote for him in November. Because he is condescending.
Romney needs to get through this appearance without sounding racist (so no “you people” remarks, or lectures on “what the black community should be doing about X or Y or Z”, or anything else like that). If he has to get out of this without sounding classist then the man better just stay in bed today – I don’t think he can order breakfast without sounding condescendingly classist.
lamh35
I expect polite applause from my people, a lot of silence, and strict instruction by NaACP leadership to plz keep heckling non-existent.
From Romney, I expect no mention of Obama def by name and if his speech writer is smart they will never use words like my “opponent”, “the other side”, or “that one”. I expect it to be as short as possible without being rude & due to the relative silence by audience very awkward.
Also no q&a and I bet if he can get away with it, he’d prefer not to shake any hands either.
All told, after the speeh is done, I expect r-money to be out of the building on less than 15-20min
Baud
@Another Halocene Human:
I’m not as up to speed as I’d like to be on that era either. Carter did face a tough primary challenge from Kennedy, however, so even many Democrats were unhappy with him.
Culture of Truth
Mitt Romney should add some star power by seating Gary Sinise, star of CSI:NY, to his cabinet, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Human Events this week in an interview.
El Cid
@Cacti: Reagan made rich people and the elitist billion dollar press feel good; those groups are also overwhelmingly composed of white people, so it was a great synchronicity between a return to the pro-big-bidness class war and the mustering of the Confederate-American community.
Davis X. Machina
@amk: +N, for a very large value of N.
Culture of Truth
1980 was depressing in many ways. (Although I actually the 70’s were pretty fun, better than now.) But the term history’s greatest monster comes from an attempt to blame Carter for the Khmer Rouge.
Cris (without an H)
NonyNony is correct.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
Wow, that’s rich.
What was the lame justification?
GregB
Shorter Mitt:
Chamber of Commerce motherfuckers!
El Cid
@Baud: What’s funny is that you don’t have to be thrilled with Carter, and so much of his awful politics and not-good decisions in order to place it in a comparative context.
Much of what Clinton did was quite shitty — but that’s only on a standard which would include even better options.
When it’s in the real-world context of Clinton’s level of competent governance versus the angry, drunken violent cavemen who replaced him and would rule in Obama’s place, why, Clinton or Carter are Plato’s impossible Philosopher Kings, or a Sophocles, or whatever.
It’s hard to discuss the quality of a political leader’s policies when there’s no sensible standard.
Using an inefficient or potentially harmful medication — albeit one which does usually successfully treat at least the illness to greater or lesser degree — versus some available better medication would ordinarily seem to be horrible; using that imperfect or riskier medication versus beating the patient to death with a baseball bat would then appear to be unalloyed genius and a miracle of good governance.
An ordinarily inefficient or blowhard mayor who actually runs a town in typical fashion so it moves along with normalcy versus a Sarah Palin running it into the ground to build a town-funded sports complex whose location was announced before she had secured the rights to the only land on which she could put it? How do you compare?
Going to class with a more-or-less competent teacher whose grading system and lecture organization or whatever would be seen as jumbled and relatively unfair yet who works really hard with whatever students she can, versus an untrained pedophile on meth — how do you compare?
GregB
Shorter Mitt:
Chamber of Commerce motherfuckers!
jayboat
Some serious boos when he says he will end Obamacare.
This could get ugly. (well we can hope)
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
Wow, that’s rich. What was the lame justification?
jayboat
Some serious boos when he says he will end Obamacare.
This could get ugly. (well we can hope)
And I’m going with the under- outta the building in less than 15.
Comrade Mary
Romney to black voters: Voting GOP is good for your families
Ad lib: “You do want the best for your families, don’t you? It would be a goshdarn shame if anything were to happen to them. I am correct, am I not?”
Ash Can
@lamh35: Can you imagine Romney taking questions from the audience? He’d self-combust on the first one.
I too expect plenty of stony silence, but punctuated with laughter. I don’t see how the people in attendance will be able to keep straight faces through the whole thing.
phantomist
Since it will be another hot day in Houston and the attendees will be hungry after the long speech, I hope Romney has the good sense to offer free Ice Tea and skittles on the way out.
Brachiator
@Zandar:
Good post. I did not know anything about Romney’s record in this area.
BTW, the post might have been a bit better with something on the impact of Mitt’s policies on Massachussetts in addition to national charts and graphs. I know that people didn’t like what Mitt did, but is there anything on the actual results?
@Culture of Truth:
I will bet you good money that Biden delivers a great speech. Even if he makes some gaffes.
Baud
@Comrade Mary:
If only I weren’t the most secretive person who ever ran for President, you would really like me.
Chris
“If only you rubes could understand me”?
Oh, THAT’s going to fly like the Hindenberg.
Ash Can
@Comrade Mary: That excerpt sounds an awful lot like he’s blaming his audience for not being smart enough to support him. This won’t go well.
El Cid
@Culture of Truth: I love that — the Khmer Rouge emerged, as the CIA was constantly warning, after Nixon carpet-bombed (after unjustified [literally, the arms-trafficking evidence never emerged] and deadly but far smaller bombing by LBJ) the country, destroyed agricultural production, inflicted widespread brute starvation, and destroyed all semblance of governance and opposition outside the formerly marginal lunatic Khmer Rouge, and they try to retroactively blame Jimmy Carter and Noam Chomsky and hippies and leftists after having been the actual ones to hand the Khmer Rouge power.
History is awesome when you can blame others for your own actions even when their supposed wrongs took place after the events in question had already occurred.
scav
Served
@Comrade Mary: I love how the opposite of this is the actual center of Mitt’s major issue as a candidate “If only I understood you [middle class, minorities, anyone not born on a silver third base]…”
And this:
Why is it impossible to fully communicate? Because you don’t believe anything except wringing money from people below you in class structure? Because fully communicating what you believe would show how repellant you are?
beltane
Alex Pareene: Mitt Romney trolls the NAACP.
Chris
@Comrade Mary:
@Ash Can:
Who scripts this shit? Seriously. It’s fucking incredible to me that I, someone with zero training in this, can spot a blatant error like that a mile away that his scriptwriters let through.
Or is it just that he won’t listen to his handlers and insists on saying idiotic things like this? That’s the most likely explanation I can think of.
amk
JohnFugelsang tweet
If you want a POTUS who can bring back pre-existing conditions for sick African Americans on day 1 you’re looking at him.
El Cid
@Served: Because HE SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO FULLY COMMUNICATE IT so SHUT UP.
Culture of Truth
@Chris: @Chris: You have to plumb the depths of Ben Stein’s brain to get it
BudP
I think he went to get booed by blah people. He told them the tough truths, and they couldn’t handle it.
russ
So Mitt rolls into Houston to speak to those people and pisses on everyone’s legs about health care and if you folks were smarter you’d vote for me and he probobly has no idea why they won’t vote for him.
amk
@beltane: Perfect. What a Lying fucktard
DougJ
If he picks Condi Rice, his case will be a slam dunk.
Black people love Condi Rice.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Chris: “If only you rubes could understand me”?
Basically. There may or may not be full-on foot-in-mouth gaffery at this event, but whatever he says must be rooted in the idea that black people are stupid, because he and his team really believe that.
Chris
@El Cid:
It seems absurd to a liberal, but things like this are the reason the CIA is considered a liberal fifth column conspiring against America by a number of Republicans. Not just the lunatics who see black helicopters in their cereal, “respectable,” “serious,” establishment Republican politicians and operators.
Culture of Truth
“The unemployment rate, the duration of unemployment, average income, and median family wealth are all worse for the black community.”
amk
@Davis X. Machina: Thanks N times. :)
Cain
@lamh35:
I also expect that he will be talking about his dad since he did a lot there. loser.
tamied
@phantomist: Oh that was horrible. But I laughed.
Jilli
The last quote preceded a rousing chorus of boo’s from the crowd when Romney mentioned doing away with Obamacare.
He didn’t change any minds with his speech.
amk
@Culture of Truth: Thanks to the teabagger thugs in congress and dumb states who voted them in.
Culture of Truth
“I will give the parents of every low-income and special needs student the chance to choose where their child goes to school. For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked to a student, so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school, or to a private school, where permitted.”
eric
@Xecky Gilchrist: what no “nigger please!” seriously…professional GOP operatives have to be soooooooooo happy they are not working for this clown. The AA media is going to HAMMER him for that….”Oh, so we are too dumb as black folk to get the rap that Richey Rich is droppin’ on us.” Sweet jesus.
Chris
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Alternately, could also just be a dog-whistle aimed at his own base. The figure of the tragically misunderstood white man who wants nothing but peace and love between us and “the blacks,” coming down to their level and pleading for them to be reasonable and abandon their savage and Communist ways, only to be stoned and crucified by the ungrateful mob, because there’s just no reasoning with These People.
ETA: yeah. Actually, that’s the whole point of this exercise. Makes more sense now.
Bruce S
Romney was received very politely as one would expect – with little sprinkles of “good host” applause at his forced notes of “good intention” or flattery of the assembled UNTIL he mentioned repealing Obamacare.
BOOOOS Bigtime!
Zandar
@BudP: And should that happen, it will be more proof that us African-Americans are ungrateful, shiftless layabouts who deserve the economic genocide the GOP brings.
Culture of Truth
Yeah, I think getting booed by a crowd of angry black people is part of a strategic choice at this point.
jibeaux
You believe that Joseph Smith found golden plates left by an angel and translated the words of God on them. Why the hell would anyone vote for you based on what you believe?
Rafer Janders
@Culture of Truth:
And you know why? Obama, that’s why. He’s the REAL racist!
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Halocene Human:
One of the reasons Carter “was the worst president ever” is that he openly had little use for most of the White House Press Corpse.
Our media courtiers are not journalists. Journalists can be respected. These assholes are TV stars. Shitty ones.
kay
He’s truly a huge asshole. He just told then he will repeal the health care law, which they booed.
He’s just using this audience to excite the GOP base. Every single thing that Mitt Romney does or says is designed to benefit Mitt Romney.
Policy aside, I keep wondering if his absolutely horrible personality and numerous and glaring character defects ALONE will sink him. Maybe it won’t matter that he says nothing substantive or true, ever. He won’t be able to get past himself to get to substance, anyway.
magurakurin
@Baud: If you’ve never seen Blazing Saddles watch it now.
Seriously, it is a classic.
eric
@Zandar: and always looking at our white women folk. dont think we cant see it. just like our daddies taught us about you folk when you were so uppity trying to get the vote.
You know white bigots out there, you are not responsible for slavery, but you are responsible for your own hatred and fear when you should know far better that what you think is wrong and immoral. You are moral monstrosities.
scav
From their point of view, could this be spun as the Mighty Mitt Strapping on his Shiny Magic Armour and Speaking Truth! to the Scary Scary Evil Hoards of Lazy People that Want Free Health Care? So the booing will be on an endless loop as evidence of his manly manful manliness?
hep kitty
This is just going to be awful, awful, awful.
Can’t wait!
catclub
@cmorenc: if he can siphon off even two to four percent of black voters from D to R in key swing states
Do you mean 2-4% of the total vote?, because when the black
vote is only 15% of the total, getting a shift in black votes that is 2% of the total is 1/6th of the black vote.
beltane
@jibeaux: And not any normal angel like Raphael or Gabriel, but the angel Moroni who chose Elmira, NY as the place to reveal The Truth.
eric
@scav: Shall we start a pool with first right wing douchebag that says Mitt was “speaking truth to power.”
scav
@eric: probably too late.
JPL
If Romney can stand up to those folk who won’t vote for him, it means he’ll stand up to
HusseinPutin.kindness
@Baud: re: Carter
Start by President Carter was a moderate. In 76 when he was elected the nation had just had it’s first presidential resignation, was still overcoming the 73 oil shock (gas went to 59 cents a gallon god forbid!) and the liberal Boomers were feeling their oats and unhappy the Democratic Party wasn’t listening to them. Carter was OK. But Reagan had a better and more devious PR team. Reagan’s people did talk to the Ayatollah and made sure the hostages weren’t freed while Carter was in office. Strike one for country first on Republican’s efforts there. Reagan’s machine not only chewed Carter several new ones but also set about throwing Alzenheimers addled Reagan on a pedestal of Sainthood from day one.
Democrats made mistakes but they also just weren’t as good at manipulation than Republicans. So you got what you now got. Carter didn’t suck but you’ll never hear that from a Republican.
Davis X. Machina
Every person in that room knows what the Corbett administration is doing to suppress Philadelphia’s vote this fall. This is not a statistically normed cross section of the community. These people are tuned in.
Mitt is lucky if he gets out of that room alive.
Bruce S
As has been noted by various commentators on this speech, Romney and his ilk make these “pilgrimages” not seeking the elusive black voters but to appeal to WHITE voters – i.e. to defuse awareness among the softer elements within their potential electorate of the obvious – and for some uncomfortable – fact of open contempt within the GOP for black folks. It’s to help “moderate” white voters who are drawn to Romney feel a little better about themselves. That’s pretty much the whole story here.
NonyNony
@kay:
You know how pundits are always decrying that our elections have become all about style over substance?
Romney has no substance, and his style is more reminiscent of “overbearing jackass CEO” than anything else.
If it’s a battle on style, Obama wins. If it’s a battle on substance, Romney has already conceded.
Without a severe change in approach or an emergency personality transplant I’m not seeing Romney’s path to victory. Rigging election machines and voter suppression can help, but it can only help you so much.
catclub
@Culture of Truth: “federal education funds will be linked..”
I bet a LOT of his audience know that federal education funds are negligible. Education funding is almost purely state/local.
Does he know he is lying to them, or does he think they do not know?
Baud
@kindness:
LOL. I guess they showed him…
Chris
@kindness:
Did anyone ever prove that? I actually find it perfectly plausible given Nixon’s similar efforts to sabotage the peace talks in 1968 and Reagan’s future links with the Iranians, I was just wondering if anyone had ever gotten anything solid on Reagan (doubt it would’ve made a difference, but what the hey).
hep kitty
@Another Halocene Human: I was around then. As a young girl, I remember how he stressed and implemented energy-saving measures, conservation and caring about the environment (back then, they called it “ecology”) and he encouraged the country to do same. Most of all, that is what I remember about his presidency. Apparently, people finally figured out what he was talking about,but almost 40 years too late.
But when Reagan came in, everything went straight to 11 on the conspicious consumption scale.
kay
@NonyNony:
The thing I heard most often from Bush supporters here was “he’s a good man“. Now, we may disagree with that, and we did, but they believed it.
Romney comes off as an asshole. I mean, really, he supposedly went in there to find common ground. So he uses this audience to throw red meat to his base?
Republicans may not like him because he’s not “severely conservative” enough (policy) but he’s also not likeable (personality).
NonyNony
@Another Halocene Human:
There are only two facts you need to know about the Carter years to understand it. The first is that in the second half of his time in office people had to wait in long lines to get gas. Prices didn’t shoot up but supply was down because price controls were in place (since Nixon, but IIRC the Iranian revolution caused Carter to be “tough on Iran” and cut off oil imports from Iran when they started oil production again. And yes, we’ve always been just that kind of stupid). Carter started phasing out the price controls, but of course Reagan gets all the credit for it.
And the reason for that is the second factoid – Carter was the first Democrat to serve as President after Nixon. The only way to correct for Nixon was to make sure the Democrats got dragged down into the mud too. (This is also why Clinton got impeached, IMHO).
Democrat who had a gas crisis on his watch. If you want to understand why the American public in the latter half of the 20th century hated or loved a president, look at the direction that gas prices go during his watch.
El Cid
@Villago Delenda Est: All these fraudulent fucks who claim they want to be like the common everyday Real American and not the hoity-toity librul ay-leets what with their $3 Starbucks lattes (unlike their own $60K SUV’s, which aren’t elitist)?
Yeah, they were all horrified when Jimmy Carter and his wife managed to survive with the fine China ordered so many years before by LBJ. What a bunch of old, outdated shit.
The beloved populist commoners among the New Royalty in the Reagan Regime had Nancy come in and throw away all those decent, American-art shitty plates and silverware and go back to the elitist finery she was accustomed to.
See? It wasn’t just Freedom, it was Free.
So was their mansion, after Reagan retired. Such was the gratitude of the super-rich for their enormous, job-creating tax cuts.
Rathskeller
@Chris: @NonyNony:
Absolutely. I’ll also add that they didn’t prepare any quips or one-liners for the boos. He takes a long, long delay to let the boos dies down from the eliminating Obamacare remarks, then immediately goes to a talking point about some goddamn survey from the goddamn Chamber of Commerce.
He had a moment there when he could have seemed responsive, human, even hurt. A funny response would have been charming here.
I am ultimately thrilled that he is such a clumsy campaigner, and also that his highly paid staff is unable to fix it.
ding dong
@phantomist: well it is mitt and anne did go watch The Help and she told him to offer watermelon and corn. I am personally hoping they offer Mitt and the whole family some of that gooood Pecan Pie.
I heard Mitt’s going to be talking about how he’s good at making money like black people are good at sport.
Brachiator
@jibeaux:
RE: 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
How is this different from the nonsense of any other religion?
For example, golden plates just seems like a variation on two stone tablets with commandments scribbled on them by some deity talking to Moses from inside a small brush fire. Or a dude moonwalking on water.
Oh, well, at least he’s not a Scientologist. Look how sane those people are.
wiscomom
@kay:
The tell that this was all an effort to get booed was simply revealed in his calling the ACA “Obamacare”. Not even an attempt to try and be subtle about it. No offer of acknowledgement that this audience would not react well to his pontifications about what he will do to simply destroy the principle achievement of Obama. His going off script after this sounded like he wanted to get in his “survey by the Chamber of Commerce” about how they won’t hire people because of “Obamacare”. Wow, I really hate this man.
Culture of Truth
I just got an alert from winger site: “Romney Refuses to Pander”
Cris (without an H)
And instead he smiled, tight-lipped, like Bree Van De Kamp. Is he man or mannequin?
NonyNony
@kay:
Yup. But in my experience the “he’s a good man” thing is almost code or short-hand. What the folks around me tended to mean when they said things like that is “he’s a religious man whose religion is very close to my own” – even among the conservative Roman Catholics! They all seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things because in their eyes he was a committed Christian. Unlike his father or Bob Dole or John McCain who were politicians and not overtly religious, Bush said and did enough things to at least make them believe that he was overtly religious, and they liked that.
scav
Ah yes, Mittster, if only people understood why their not getting heath care or insurance or education or a job was actually in their Own Best Interest. Didn’t Katrina work out very well for all those little people? But people are Just So Slow. If Only you could communicate to them.
PeakVT
@Cacti: Good point.
Timothy Bonneville
I was probably thinking of the 40 acre properties in Lancaster, PA (where we also visited on this trip)…
Bruce S
@Davis X. Machina:
“Mitt is lucky if he gets out of that room alive.”
Really? That’s like saying that Romney would be lucky if he got out of an AME church service alive. The NAACP is as polite and measured an audience as one could possibly find in the terrain of politics where folks actually care about key issues. They even had their organ player accentuating some of his “good intentions” notes.
He got one round of boos when he made an almost insane faux pas that he would NOT have even mentioned if he had intelligent people running his campaign and writing his speeches. Not only did he diss Obama’s centerpiece accomplishment in office as an “unnecessary tax” but claimed as President he would repeal it, which he can’t. Unbelievably stupid provocation – put his foot up his own butt with that one. The man is an idiot. But he was extended a large measure of good will and tolerance by the NAACP audience, as are all of their invited speakers. If Obama were speaking to an equivalent right-leaning group, the difference in sense of common decency and respect would have been tangible. Hell, Obama has been treated worse when he addressed Congress.
kay
@wiscomom:
I think it’s amazing that anyone, anywhere, takes “The Chamber of Commerce” as anything but rabid partisan hacks. He may as well say “this survey by the RNC”. Is there any daylight between the “C of C” and the “GOP”? They’re a wholly owned subsidiary.
Chris
@NonyNony:
Conservative Catholics have been accepted into the mainstream of American society, therefore they can see a member of the mainstream religion as “close to their own religion.”
Just as “good man” is a dog-whistle for religion, religion in turn is a dog-whistle for identity politics. It’s not about whether his actual religious beliefs line up with your own, it’s about whether you’re part of the same identity group of “Real Americans” (which to a great degree overlaps with “white people.”)
ET
MSNBC is saying he went before the NAACP and vowed to do away with Obamacare. If true, Mitt is an idiot. Obviously he wants to be able to say to his peeps and those wavering, that he went to the belly of the beast and spoke truth to power. Cause honestly that is the only reason that makes sense.
NonyNony
@Bruce S:
Unless you believe that he said it to provoke the boos, which I do.
I think now his supporters can run the “whisper” campaign of “THOSE PEOPLE just hate white people” in the background and use this as evidence. Essentially the “if everyone is racist then nobody is racist” gambit. We’ll hear how he tried to reach out and was just smacked aside by the totally racist NAACP without any mention of the fact that he was being deliberately provocative.
The rest of your post I agree with – David Duke could probably give a speech in front of the NAACP and the worst that would happen to him is a collective walk-out by all of the members. But don’t kid yourself on Romney – this wasn’t a stupid screw-up. This was intentional. There’s no way his staff would put something in that deliberately and obviously provocative for this audience without meaning to provoke a response.
scav
@NonyNony: So now one can see the obvious clever bit about having Biden go in front of the NAACP.
JPL
@ET: He was not their to preach to the NAACP. He was their to provide to appeal to the GOP base.
Bruce S
I also have to say that Romney’s invocation of his father – who was in fact a decent man, a politician with considerable integrity and a “job creator” businessman in the old industrialist mold – was a reminder of just how far the GOP has fallen into the
Dixiecrat-turned-GOP and Hard Right wingnut gutter and how diametrically different Willard is from his dad.kay
@Bruce S:
I think he said it deliberately. It was not intended for that audience, and so it was not received well by that audience. He was talking to his base.
JPL
When does VP Biden speak?
amk
@NonyNony: Yup. Just watch how pox news and shock jocks will spin it against AA’s.
Culture of Truth
WaPo:
In 2008, Sen. John McCain focussed on education reform and opened his remarks by praising Obama as “an impressive fellow in many ways.”
“His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud. Of
course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes,” he said, adding that Obama’s success was a milestone. “Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing — for himself and for his country — and I thank him for it.”
McCain earned 4 percent of the African American vote in
2008.
HRA
“Mitt Romney told the NAACP on Wednesday that President Obama has made it worse for African-Americans “in almost every way.”
I cannot say any words at all that would really really serve to tell exactly how I feel about what is said by this egomaniac unless I use some really bad ones.
Chris
@NonyNony:
And a measured response at that. If he was a Democrat trying to talk about “Obamacare” in a town hall meeting, he never would’ve even gotten a word out – when we tried in 2009/2010, teabaggers simply congregated at the front of the room, linked arms and chanted wingnut slogans loudly enough that no one could either ask or answer a question.
That, of course, was simply free speech from concerned citizens, whereas by this evening, this event will have been turned into a declaration of race war by several dozen wingnut news outlets. In the same way two black guys with sticks in front of a voting booth were proof that the blacks had their own KKK, but dozens of heavily armed men waving threatening slogans in front of town hall meetings was, again, simply free speech at work.
Culture of Truth
Biden speaks tomorrow.
Baud
This was Romney’s anti-Sista Souljah moment.
Culture of Truth
I would like access to the drugs Ron Christie uses:
“He has a great opportunity to engage with a constituency and to establish a rapport of trust that he will continue in the weeks and months and years to come if he is elected president.”
NonyNony
@scav:
Meh. Biden’s a Democrat so as far as the whisper campaign side goes he might as well be black. It won’t defuse anything on that side. And it won’t be widely reported unless he has a verbal gaffe that makes him look like an idiot.
But it probably would have been worse to have the juxtaposed visuals of Obama getting applause while Romney gets booed playing on every channel tuned to Fox News in the country for the next month. So overall probably a good move.
Poopyman
@Bruce S:
Get real. That’s what he went there for, to get video of him getting booed. Look for it on a Romney campaign ad in the near future.
God, I hate these people.
scav
@Culture of Truth: If I was a really really really cynical and wholly political beast I might think that would be a perfect venue to announce some reasonably bad but inevitable cut-backs.
scav
@NonyNony: yeah, a little better is about all you can do — it’s not a masterstroke but it’s at least a competent paying attention to all the details, even the little ones.
Bruce S
@NonyNony:
Reasonable hunch – because it was incredibly stupid if it wasn’t done according to your version. “On the other hand” there is also plenty of evidence that the Romney campaign IS incredibly stupid. But you’re right that it will be snatched up by wingnuts as evidence that Romney is their man (as opposed to a cynical fuck who must have even more contempt for them than we do, which I am absolutely certain he does given that to realize his ambitions he’s got to bend over for these loons 24/7 and couldn’t possibly not know how nutty and fraudulent most of the stuff he’s saying to fit their template happens to be.)
lamh35
@ Bruce S, Cris (without an H, wiscomom, Rathskeller:
I hate to say it, but my people got played. Romney went to NAACP to “speak in the lions den” and got just the reaction I think the campaign wanted. That extended boo-ing and Romney’s silence lends me to believe that we can expect to see that clip in ads and video all over FauxNews and TeaNN
Bruce S
@Poopyman:
“Look for it on a Romney campaign ad in the near future”
It might have been bait rather than just typical Romney fail, but the campaign ad suggestion is delusional. “Get real.” Uh, yeah…
NonyNony
@Poopyman:
No, that would defeat the purpose. That would make the racism blatant and turn off moderates.
This is the kind of thing that will float around right-wing sites and be a justification for moderate voters to ignore racism because “both sides do it”. Not something that the Romney campaign will blatantly point to to scream “both sides do it”.
What you’ll get are Romney supporters on the TV and the “conversation” will go something like:
It’s an innoculation against charges of racism, not something they’ll make campaign ads around.
Chris
@Bruce S:
He used to be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and pro-ACA. So yeah, I suspect he does know how nutty and fraudulent the GOP is, he just has elected not to care, because that’s not how he’ll win.
It’s like George Wallace said (about the same base): “You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been a part of my career, but nobody listened. Then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.”
kay
I’m also sick of him invoking his father. He’s almost 70 years old, and it is abundantly clear he is not his father.
Isn’t it enough that he has the from-birth advantage of being a second generation national politician? Does he also get to ride on his father’s reputation for all eternity? How many unearned advantages are we supposed to give this extremely privileged person?
Screw that. Stop leaning on daddy, Mitt.
Bruce S
I’m half-persuaded by the deliberate provocation suggestion. The other “half” is that there’s not been a hell of a lot of evidence that his campaign is that smart.
Culture of Truth
It won’t be in an ad. It will play one day on Fox News, which is likely the whole point.
El Cid
@HRA:
This is a blog named “Balloon-Juice”, so unlike a local Democratic party outreach newsletter or a library bulletin board or the like, you’re perfectly free to use bad words.
scav
@Bruce S: Might help to distinguish flashes of basic cunning and sustained competence.
ETA: Meaning having the former doesn’t imply the latter and not having the latter doesn’t rule out having the former, to belabor the point.
ET
@JPL: Oh yeah.
I definitely think he went with a hidden agenda and less than honest intentions. This will play real, real well on Faux.
NonyNony
@Bruce S:
Romney probably has more contempt for them than we do, but let’s be a bit fair – it’s tough to notice his contempt for them when his contempt for humanity that is not as rich as Mitt Romney is so blatant. It masks his contempt for the slice of humanity he has to pander to to realize his ambitions.
And I think some of them at least know it and will vote for him anyway because right now he stands for the same things they do (tax cuts, putting women/gays/minorities in “their place”, pissing off liberals) and will do more to advance their agenda than an Obama win would.
Others have just as much contempt for him as he does for them, and like the fact that he has to debase himself to them to get what he wants.
Bruce S
@scav:
Excellent distinction.
Bruce S
@NonyNony:
Yeah, but there’s no substitute for that frothy feeling they must have gotten from doing it with the real thing – you know, the Full Santorum! Romney’s a dildo.
NonyNony
@scav:
Exactly.
I don’t actually think this is a particularly smart strategy – it will help him with the short term and will shore up some of the base. And sadly some voters over 35 are going to have their prejudices reinforced with this because we’re stupid and lazy and things that reinforce our prejudices are like comfort food.
But younger voters are probably going to ask the critical question that Romney’s camp won’t want them asking “what did he say that got booed”? And then, of course, they can just look it up on the fucking Internet and find out that they booed him for wanting to “repeal Obamacare”. And then they’ll say something like “Christ what an asshole” and be done with it. Because it doesn’t really play into a “Mitt Romney – wounded victim” narrative. It plays into a “Mitt Romney is a giant flaming asshole and nobody likes him” narrative.
This sort of thing is the kind of thing the typical College Republican thinks is an awesome piece of strategy because they have contempt for the intelligence of voters. Sometimes its justified, but for the most part I think this one is going to end up going over like a wet fart.
Elie
@lamh35:
I agree but how much more can Romney already win of the racist vote? He has all of it now….
I do wish, however, that the audience had just been stone silent.
Southern Beale
Apparently Romney got booed at the NAACP when he said he’d repeal “Obamacare” …
lamh35
Expect this video to play heavy in the “Shirley Sherod is a racist crowd”. I expect to see it used in “Blacks are the real racist” headline everywhere.
Baud
@lamh35:
Nah. The purpose was to reinforce the talking point that Obamacare is only about helping blah people.
Spectre
What a disgusting little stunt by Romney.
lamh35
In a round about way, here is the real insult, Romney panders to everyone. All the usual pundits asks who won’t Romney pander to? Well from this speech alone, one can assume African Americans are not worth pandering to for Romney, so he uses this speech as not just a slap to the face of Obama, but to his most ardent supporters to sure up the people he are perfectly happy to pander to.
lamh35
@Elie: I’m not gonna bemoan my people for booing. We take alot bigotted comments of stuff daily from certain people we work with or work under and we leave it all in stride, but I’ll be darn if we let someone come to our house and do the same thing.
It’s like I said, AA are not worth pandering to for Romney, so he figured hey, why not use this well respected organization as a tool. And in a way completely disrepected the NAACP’s invite.
Hell McCain’s speech in 2008 had more respect than Romney.
The Moar You Know
Perfectly played, Willard, old boy.
The NAACP got played hard today. Willard gets his Fox go-to race relations reel and burnishes his Klan Kred in the bargain.
Didn’t think his crew was that smart.
amk
scav, Bruce S and NonyNony. Thanks for your discussions.
NonyNony
@lamh35:
On the other hand, he doesn’t seem to expect the African American crowd to believe his bullshit (unlike the rest of the citizens of the USA). I’d wear it as a badge of honor – the one group of people in the country that Mitt Romney doesn’t think is stupid enough to believe his lies.
gwangung
@Elie: Yeah, pretty much this.
He went into the NAACP lion’s den with a plan he executed. Perfect execution of tactics.
I’m just not sure that the strategy he’s employing it for is all that much of a winner; getting persecution points is fine for shoring up the base—but he needs more than the base. He either needs to grab independents or suppress the Democratic vote, and this tactic will do neither of that.
JPL
@The Moar You Know: Not sure if this will work. It was a whistle to the base and some know it. Of course, I’m naive and only slept a few hours last night so might be wrong.
I don’t think the MSM will call it for what it is but indirectly they could say how the speech was to his base more than anyone else.
Midnight Marauder
@lamh35:
It doesn’t even matter how the NAACP played it, the Romney campaign was going to create a moment just like this either way. If they agree to let him speak, then he goes in like today and the Confederates can say “See, he tried to reach out to those people!”
If the NAACP says “Nah, son. Go fuck yourself,” then Romney and his people get to run around saying “They’re too afraid to hear the harsh truth!”
They’ve designed a game where we lose either way.
That’s why it’s time to create a new game.
The Thin Black Duke
I’m sorry, but maybe those proud African-American brothers and sisters didn’t feel like being good little Negroes that day. I don’t care if it makes white people embarrassed. Hell, in a sane world, a tsunami of boos should follow Romney wherever his rich entitled android carcass goes.
Chris
@Southern Beale:
He walked into their house, said they were too stupid to connect with him and said he was going to end their health insurance. Course they’re going to boo.
Mr Stagger Lee
Frankly if it was an attempt to score points, I would say the booing was nothing more than a 3-point conversion, when Mitt needs to score touchdowns after a 4 touchdown Romp by the Obama team, or a free throw for one point when Team Obama just made 4 straight 3-point shots. If it did anything it just made those who hate figures it was so, but not enough for the base to get out the sheets and defend hearth, home and White Womanhood. The offshore bank accounts are the tsunami that Team RobbedMe has to contain.
the Conster
Five months from now not one person will be voting based on what was said at this convention, so the OH NOES BOOS! people can calm down. Mitt’s the worst candidate ever in every way possible, and there will be so many more opportunities for him to demonstrate his suckitude at campaigning between now and November that by then he’ll wish he had 27% unfavorables.
The Moar You Know
Every headline on Google News right now: “Romney booed at NAACP”.
He just bought himself a lot of cred with the knuckle-draggers, right when he needed it.
NonyNony
@JPL:
I imagine he’ll be openly mocked by Stephen Colbert and/or John Stewart. Rachel Maddow will point out exactly what he’s doing, probably with detailed charts.
The rest of the info-tainment industry will do what they will with it. Fox News will flog it until the next outrage comes up and they’ll bring it back up whenever the Romney camp steps in some overt racism. Limbaugh will have the clip of the “boos” there to play for some “funny” bit that he thinks up that will be incredibly racist. The rest of MSNBC’s crew will flog it or ignore it as needed. CNN will … does anyone actually care what CNN does with anything anymore?
The more I think about it, the more I think this will fall flat. Reinforce a few prejudices, potentially alienate younger voters, provide another example of Mitt Romney being a giant douchebag.
@Chris:
Worse than that, actually. He walked in and told them “Here, let me take a dump on a major accomplishment from our first African-American President. And I’ll call it ‘Obamacare’ when I do it just to punctuate that what I’m doing is taking a dump on a major accomplishment from our first African-American President.”
There are all sorts of ways he could have criticized Obama’s take on health care without provoking a chorus of boos (admittedly 99% of them would have required him saying what he would have done differently, but still). He could also have just skipped it entirely. He chose to take that dump – and then to stand back and tell them how awesome the Chamber of Commerce thought his dump was.
gwangung
@The Moar You Know:
So? He needs MORE than that. MUCH more.
Not gonna play that well outside his base.
Catsy
@NonyNony:
It can be intentional and still be an appallingly stupid screw-up. If he or his campaign really think they’ll see a net gain from the wingnut base in response to this that outweighs the deadly optics of being booed here, they are so incompetent that have no business ever working in politics again.
Kane
I would not put it past Romney that he went there in search of boos so that he could portray himself as a victim.
El Cid
I think there’s a strong view / strategy that this election will hinge on getting a motivated anti-Obama GOP base out and repress / block / depress the turnout of likely Democratic voters.
I don’t think they’re as concerned about turning people who aren’t already GOP voters into GOP voters, but about turning out GOP loyalists and keeping away the ACORN Muslim foodstamp illegal immigrant vote fraudsters.
quannlace
Romney: “I believe that if you understand who I truly am in my heart……you would vote for me for President.”
Cause I can’t give you any actual good reasons to do so.
Sigh. So Romney’s campaign strategy is ‘B My Valentine?”
***************************
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ash Can:
Hasn’t that been the theme as of late; the common folk don’t support Romney because they dumb?
Kane
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Apparently Romney believes that he was speaking to a convention of “nails ladies.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris: Worth remembering the Iranians hated Carter with a passion so I doubt if Reagan’s people had to work hard to cut a deal. I recall distinctly the hostages being the released the day of Reagan’s inauguration being described a pure cheep shot by the Iranians on Carter.
Catsy
@El Cid:
Then they’re still idiots. The kind of wingnuts who will be positively motivated by seeing Romney booed at the NAACP are already voting for him. They already want the black man out of the White House. So it doesn’t really gain them anything that isn’t overwhelmingly offset by the PR disaster this represents to anyone who isn’t already predisposed to view getting booed at the NAACP as a badge of honor.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Here’s another take; Romney is a self centered prick. For the past year and half he has been trying to claim what he sees as his birthright as George Romney’s son everyone right and left have been treating him like shit. This NAACP was scoring some points back at what he sees as his tormentors and doing a little public self pity.
scav
Well, consider the options for RommBott. Imagine wandering into Private Club Cozy as a failed candidate that even lost the Hard Core Base. He needs the hard core base almost more than he needs the election.
Brachiator
@Kane:
People don’t vote for victims to be president.
Also, Mittens likes to present himself as being large and in charge. And although I don’t think that the convention would boo him, I can more imagine the conservative lickspittles going on and on about how Romney went into the den of liberalism and entitlements and emerged unscathed and spotless than I can see them whining about how scary black people made Little Mittie feel bad.
El Cid
@Catsy: Like I said, they’re thinking it’s about turnout, and not so much persuading GOP loyalists and Demoncrat haters to prefer Republicans, but to actually turn out and vote for them.
Turnout is often related to perception and motivation, even beyond demographic generalities.
Whether they’re right or wrong in predicting what actions will increase versus decrease turnout, this is completely different than trying to make sure some right winger doesn’t vote Democrat — it’s about trying to make sure they get off their asses and vote.
For a while even during the primary, Republicans were talking about how Obama or no, many Republicans weren’t thrilled with the idea of turning out to vote for Mitt Romney. And they were talking fearfully.
Personally I thought that this wouldn’t be a great problem for them, and all it would take is a bit of reminder that Obama is the biggest Muslim soshullist threat to their daughters’ virginity and to the Freedom of Southern States to celebrate their heritage and who wants to cut off all the use of gasoline so he can bow to more Muslim tyrants, and, boom, they’re turning out.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@kay:
FTFY (not that the original wording was incorrect).
elie
@lamh35:
I’m not going to bemoan their reaction either — it was genuine..
I.just.hate.giving.the.Bishop.ANYTHING. A boo is too much of a reaction. Cold silence… that is what his little smirk was worth — his reaction showed that he got what he wanted and it just makes my teeth crunch. That of course and the next time Obama is invited to speak to any conservative group, this will be their excuse for booeing or walking out, or whatever they can escalate.
Elie
— also, now all we will hear about is the freakin boos and not how lame the content he gave. Y’all know that…
LanceThruster
@El Cid: A-f#cking-men!
Rathskeller
@Catsy: strongly agree. as I keep telling my always-depressed democratic friend, you cannot vote against Obama 81 times just because you really hate him profoundly. The Romney gained nothing here but another missed opportunity to connect and appear human.
rikyrah
While maybe the NAACP shouldn’t have invited Willard, but to think the audience could stay quiet while he told them that he would work against giving 7 million Black folks healthcare, while every Black person you know knows someone with a pre-existing condition; knows someone who will be helped with the expansion of localized medical clinics, and knows someone without insurance…umm, no.
The speech was never for Black folk in the first place, and we all know that.
The Thin Black Duke
@elie: I dunno, Elie.
I mean, Christ–how much naked disrespect are my people supposed to take?
Personally, whatever I think of that lame smirk on his face, it’s gonna make me bust my African-American ass even harder to keep Mr. Magic Underpants from sitting in the Oval Office.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That’s the whole campaign.
“I’m smarter than everyone else, but especially the black man, because of all the money I
stolemade, so vote for me”.rikyrah
@kay:
kay Says:
I wish I had some of that SuperPac money, cause I’d make me an ad like this:
picture of George
audio and the quoting of George with the words on screen: In 1968, George Romney took the unprecedented step of releasing 12 years of tax returns. Why? He said one year could be a fluke. One year could be MANIPULATED.
His son?
Mitt Romney has only released ONE YEAR of tax returns.
Mitt Romney isn’t even a twelfth of the man his father was.
WHAT IS MITT HIDING?
LanceThruster
If he really cared about the concerns of the minority community (he doesn’t), he could come out strongly against the voter suppression drives happening across the nation (focused primarily on swing states), and would rightly be well-received by the NAACP if he really took action.
Instead, we’ll get some sort of mendacious Mitt lip service Kabuki dance, and the NAACP will be pilloried for not warming to his spew.