Repeal ACA: NAACP Booed Romney

Why would this idiot go to a minority organization which  strongly favors  the Affordable Care Act and talk about repealing it??? That's equivalent to going to a Hispanic organization and saying he will shoot down the immigration law!! lol---- I am baffled as to how numb Romney really is to the pulse and heart beat of the average voters!!  he is not perceptive; he is disconnected and unable to relate to people's basic needs. He should have gotten booed !! I can say this emphatically as a minority, Romney did not do the Minority community a favor by coming and singing his Generic Song of repealing Obama care.  In order to appeal to a diverse group, Romney has to come out of his comfort zone and really find out what drives a community or ethnic group.  Attempt to Identify or find out some genuine needs. However, it is evident that he is not genuine about improving a community of people. ughhh!!     

Come on, Tom. Rule # 1: Know your audience. Just as Obama found that out recently when he was booed for a sports reference, Romney should know better. And it wasn't like these were planned boos. If you listen to most of the speech, the crowd politely claps and even cheers a few times. But these comments were awkward & misplaced (I'd argue even shocking for some if you look at their faces) and led to spontaneous boos because they were offensive and showed a complete lack of understanding of what repealing "Obamacare" would mean to millions of African Americans and ALL citizens. That may work with a conservative crowd but really? How did he think that would play? And it's so disingenuous since Romneycare is the same thing but suddenly his creation is evil? The audience members aren't dumb. I appreciate that he accepted the invitation to be there but I just think he missed an opportunity to really connect and show some leadership. Would it have hurt to mention the voter suppression issues that impact mostly minorities? Oh, that would require a real leader. He didn't even do simple steps to at least give a few ideas/plans of his own. No, it was all generic garbage. Looking at all the "out of touch" headlines this inspired today, I really don't think Romney won the day. And I resent this polite, respectful audience being condemned for a very natural reaction to insensitive comments. Why would Rush Limbaugh paint this audience as rude for booing but Tea Party groups who boo at events are just good patriotic citizens exercizing their free speech? He is probably thinking: "Don't the blacks know their place?" If Romney agrees to speak, he should not expect to muzzle his audience or criticize a negative reaction that he clearly could have avoided. It was his choice to put that in the speech and he needs to suffer the consequences.

Under this pathetic strategy, I guess Romney's people have a speech prepared for Michigan in which Romney rails against the auto bailout?

It would be like President Obama being invited to a conservative event and making negative comments about their hero, Ronald Reagan. He'd be an idiot not to expect boos! If there was ever a day in which Romney proved just how out of touch he is, it's today (although we hve many others to choose from!)

I don't always agree with Mr. Steele, but he was spot on!!!!  :)

Translating Romney: I'm going to take away your chance at getting health insurance

Oh... where to begin.

No... the first rule is NOT  know your audience. The first rule is know the speaker you bring into your audience.2nd rule is know that the cameras and media will cover the audience as well as the speaker. (Romney aced his part; NAACP audience, not so much).

Romney understood his audience.  The NAACP didn't understand the media they invited into the event. Go ahead and Google this event where the audience was polite for most of the speech and what do you get: "ROMNEY BOOED AT NAACP CONVENTION.  NAACP apologists (and at least one poster here) are coming forward... ahem... contextualizing the booing.  That's playing defense against your own errors.

"And I resent this polite, respectful audience being condemned for a very natural reaction to insensitive comments."

I  do condemn  NAACP for  booing (or more precisely for booing rudely an invited speaker, coming off like a bleachers audience in a Phillies game, and, with news cameras in the room, giving Romney a nice PR cushion against his own possible miscues). Resent it all you want. 

They booed a line "Repeal Obamacare" he has been using in public for months. Are you arguing that NAACP membership is too sensitive to engage in national political debate on the same terms as everyone else? That NAACP needs a separate (but equal?) re-phrasing of political positions lest they erupt into "very natural" disorder at the mere mention of a standard conservative position?

Romney was not rude or even out of touch.  He had a message for the NAACP that conservatives, including black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, have been touting for years: lower government domestic spending (some of us might call it "investment" but Romney got the invitation to speak, we didn't ) in the free market does more to  help impoverished communities than government planning, spending, intervention and regulation.  This is 18th century free market capitalism. I think one can expect a professional organization with a distinguished legacy and some presumption toward national leadership to handle a familiar, almost cliched, conservative economic position,  without sounding like Ted Nugent's fans when he starts dropping Hillary Clinton's name to gin up crowd vitriol.

I like the idea that Romney walked in and said, if you want more program-oriented government, vote for the other guy. What I hear there is "I have principles (for once), I am sticking by them, I believe they are better for your interests and the nation's interests. than those proposed by Obama, and I am not going to make or even hint at changes in point of view that I have no intention of keeping." Sounds like leadership to me.

"Would it have hurt to mention the voter suppression issues that impact mostly minorities?"
I, too, am appalled at the lack of attention to this issue. I am appalled that it took AG Eric Holder three years to make a public issue of it when this crap has been going on systematically and openly since Rove/Bush/Gonzalez were screwing around.  If we are going to start kicking arse on this site about ignoring voter suppression, we have a LONG list of people to work on before we get to Romnney.

I appreciate the need for bone-headed opposition that excoriates Romney for changing his mind (flip flopper with no principles) and excoriates Romney for being consistant (he is "out of touch" because he won't change his message or presentation to suit the NAACP, factory workers, etc.).I won't sit here and claim I have never done it.   But that's pep rally cheerleading. It's  part of political theater. Let's just not kid ourselves into thinking it's reasoned, balanced argument or judgment.
 

Romney deployed "plants" in the audience at NAACP convention in Houston?

The answer is NO because even if he did "deploy plants" in, he didn't do anything that Obama and every other politician with an advance team doesn't do for every public event.

 NAACP convention is open to all members. Membership cost $30. The NAACP convention had onsite registration (as do most conventions, check the website)

Romney knew he was going to speak at least a couple of weeks ago, maybe longer. If his camp urged, or even purchased, gift memberships to friends to qualify them to go to the convention, attend, and cheer for him, fine.  Find an Obama public event on the road that was not orchestrated, to the point of knowing who is in the audience, who is standing behind him and who is visible on camera?  With his disapproval ratings among white, blue collar workers in the midwest, you think Obama is going to walk into a Ohio factory and give a speech prior to an operations team doing a four-times-over check of every staging detail? Come on, folks.

Plus, the link to this story has the headline "Romney MAY HAVE (my emphasis) deployed plants. Well he MAY HAVE  tried to deploy nerve gas pellets at the convention that failed. He MAY HAVE saved a choking NAACP staff person back stage with the Heimlich maneuver and ordered everyone not to say a word about it. You know, he MAY HAVE!!!

Sorry, but it REALLY bugs me when this site goes FOX NEWS LEFT.   Romney has enough real flaws that we don't have to invent garbage or traffic in innuendo, or "I'm just throwing a bunch of crap about Romney out there... you decide if it's true."

Sincerely,

TomG., RFO resident grumpy old man

"The audience was looking for common ground on various issues. Romney had the opportunity to address the African American audience and bridge the gap with the African American voters even if he did not win over the majority. "

You're right, he didn't bridge the gap.  He clearly chose not to. I would consider this an appalling decision on his part if he had asked to speak on the pretense that he wanted to bridge gaps and mend fences.  It would have been an appallingly manipulative, exploitative thing to offer that olive branch and then give the speech he did. But the invitation came from NAACP.

Your post makes me flip that supposition, though.  If NAACP extended the invitation to Romney, knowing his positions, and then booed him publicly for positions they knew he was going to take (thinking, mistakenly in my view, that the booing of Romney would lead to a "net" embarrassment and negative for him), I have to wonder who is being exploitative and manipulative.

"He had the chance to sow the seed that the Republican and conservative leader cared about the concerns of the African American community."

He did. He said that less government, fewer purpose-directed government programs will eventually bring more jobs to all communities, including African-American communities, than more government investment. The costs associated with Obamacare (now a term of choice, amazingly, among Democrats) are among those costly government programs he would eliminate. He disdains on personal and economic principles government support of individuals (yes, I know, he gets enough tax breaks in a year to fund whole school districts, but doctrinaire conservatives, as every Republican of any stripe knows, believe sincerely that governement financial breaks to 'entrepreneurs' do not count as government handouts). This is his vision for improving America economically -- or if it is a bald-faced lie, it is the same bald faced lie he tells everywhere on how to improve America economically.

"Just because it was a “practice” for all conservative leaders to bypass and avoid the black community doesn’t mean the African American community should be jumping for joy"

False dichotomy: >NAACP had to boo him otherwise it would appear they were jumping for joy.<  Not taking that bait.

Today is Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, Darling and everybody. There is beautiful weather in Western New York this morning.  I hope there are endless skyways and golden valleys wherever you are.