Northern Colorado Gazette

by Matt Lacy –

In an interesting twist, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been accused of racism for being booed while speaking at the NAACP convention.

Appearing at the organization’s annual convention Romney’s message appeared to be one to appeal to all Americans rather than a select constituency as is often done by politicians. The message was similar to others made on the campaign trail, including the one he made when he recently came to Weld County.

In the speech, Romney said if elected he would reduce or eliminate inefficient government programs including ObamaCare, which was recently upheld by the Supreme Court by declaring the act’s individual mandate and other features to be a tax.

The statement solicited boo’s from the audience.

Romney defended his speech, telling donors in Montana that while he expected a negative response, he still felt it was important to give the same speech to everybody.

“’I don’t give different speeches to different audiences, alright. I gave them the same speech. When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare they weren’t happy, I didn’t get the same response,” Romney said.  “That’s OK, I want people to know what I stand for and if I don’t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that’s just fine.”

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word suggested that Romney wanted to get booed so the campaign could use the video of a white man being booed by blacks.

“Am I being too cynical to think that the Romney campaign actually went into that room today with the hope of getting booed at least three times because they want the video … to play in certain racist precincts where that will help them.”

He said this is a normal Republican “Southern strategy that Republicans have used since [President Richard] Nixon and started a little bit before that, where there`s actually an almost overt sometimes appeal to racial and racist voting.”

Goldie Taylor, a liberal writer and commentator agreed with O’Donnell, “I don`t think you`re being too cynical at all,” and went on to say Romney went in there to talk to his base rather than the NAACP.

Toure, with “The Cycle” said Romney was “using black people to score points with white people.”

Mark Thompson, host of “Make it Plain” said it was disrespectful for Romney to state his support for traditional marriage, despite polls showing the majority of black Americans agreeing with Romney on the issue, because the NAACP as an organization supports same-sex marriage.

Appearing on Bloomberg TV, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Romney deliberately goaded the audience into booing him to appeal to white racist voters.

“I think it was a calculated move on his part to get booed at the NAACP convention.”

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