A reader quotes me:
"But I think he gets points for showing up." It’s all Romney wanted. Sad, really. A man who wants to run the country agrees to speak to the NAACP, people with a constituency with real problems, problems being discussed in this campaign. He avoids those problems, but the media will line up to say he deserves credit for speaking to them, even though he doesn’t actually speak to them. So he has access to African American unemployment figures? Yet not even a suggestion that he has a plan or an interest in alleviating it. It’s OK to call a pathetic attempt a pathetic attempt.
Another:
You say that he gets points for showing up at the NAACP conference. I would agree. The real question, however, is points from who?
He certainly didn't offer up a good reason for the folks in the room to give him any points. The points he was looking to get was to check the "I tried to reach out to those people" box for his base, which is about as interested in addressing the issues facing the black community as Mitt Romney is releasing his tax returns. I suspect he also thinks he'll look like Daniel in the lion's den for his base.
Another is harsher:
Romney's not trying to win a single African-American vote. His team knew that he'd get booed for saying he'd repeal Obamacare. His team knew that would be the visual (and soundbite) that would lead the news. And I think his team liked the idea of Romney getting booed by a roomful of black people. Am I too cynical to think those boos help him with the Tea Partiers and others in the GOP base who aren't thrilled with him? That those boos – and the TV image – helps him win the votes of the under-employed/economically insecure white males that he needs so badly in November?
That interpretation is bearing out more and more:
Romney himself said he "expected" to be booed for it, and in remarks first reported on The Rachel Maddow Show [last night], he demonstrated why. According to a pool report from Romney’s Hamilton, Montana fundraiser, he brought up the booing, and told donors "if they (Obamacare supporters) want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy – more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free. It has to paid for by people in the private sector creating goods and services, and if people want jobs more than they want free stuff from government, then they are going to have to get government to be smaller.
A reader adds:
It's painful enough to watch Romney being booed by the NAACP after ill-advised use of "Obamacare," but when he claims that he spoke with "African-American leaders" after the speech and they turn out to have been people he brought with him?
The Dish 