Romney Turns Up

"If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him."

It's not usually in my nature to award points to candidates (particularly conservative ones) for this sort of thing, but I have to say: it was good of Romney to turn up at the NAACP event. But mostly because Obama didn't. It's a point of inevitability that the president will garner a huge majority of the African American vote in November, but Obama's imprudent and neglectful decision to give the event a miss gives the distinct impression — I hate to have to say it — of a candidate whose only interest is votes. It's as though Obama was operating under the assumption that he needn't do anymore courting to win the black vote.

And he's right — he doesn't. But that's not the point. The point is that Romney showed up, even to an ever so slightly less-receptive audience than the one that would have greeted Barack Obama. If campaigning is all about votes, then Romney's visit was an exercise in utter futility. There wasn't much Romney could have said, short of a complete political pivot, that would have changed the prevailing prediction that he'll receive the support of even fewer African American voters than John McCain in 2008. His poor performance fits the phrase 'foregone conclusion' too comfortably for comfort. 

Thank goodness for Romney that, as Jamelle Bouie stressed in his take on the event, showing up was more about proving a point:

The point of this address to the NAACP was to send a signal to right-leaning, suburban white voters—that Mitt Romney is tolerant, and won’t represent the bigots in his party. But there’s a sense in which Romney had it both ways: Not only did he reassure hesitant whites, but by pledging to repeal Obamacare—and being booed by the audience—he likely increased his standing with those who do resent African Americans. By going to an audience of black professionals and sticking with his stump speech, there’s a sense in which Romney might receive credit for refusing to “pander.”

Most of the reactions go something like this: it was unpleasant, but good on him for showing up. Yeah, I suppose so, too.

(Image: "A boy listens to US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) annual convention in Houston on July 11, 2012. Romney brought his pro-jobs pitch to black voters Wednesday, aiming to poach defectors by arguing US President Barack Obama has left the economy "worse for African-Americans in almost every way." Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images, via SFGate)