Granted, picking apart Romney's speech to the NAACP is like shooting fish in a barrel, especially since he clearly was playing the audience in order to boost his bonafides with his audience, at least some of whom will appreciate him vowing to repeal "Obamacare". And FWIW, from the clips I've seen, Romney was received quite civilly, and even won applause for some of his criticism of Obama's performance as president.
The line that really caught my attention (full disclosure, I have neither read the transcript nor watched the speech, I'm just responding to the quotes and video clips I've seen) was
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...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 wouldn’t be running for president.
Yes indeed, Romney knows what's best for black people, and that's why he's running for president. The hubris of that claim is carefully couched, this is what he "believe"s, and his policies and leadership will generically help "families of any color", but this is still a pretty amazing claim.
It certainly begs the question why he is not able to "fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African American families", since winning the black vote would give him a lock for the presidency. I see three possibiliities:
1-Unfortunately, black people are too ignorant/misled/deluded to understand his Wonderful Plan, no matter how well he communicates it.
2-Romney has a kickass plan to make everything better for black people, but if he communicates it before the election, he'll lose the Tea Party vote.
3-He's lying his damn ass off once again.
What's amazing to me is that he would include lines like this in a speech that was clearly intended to win political points by provoking the audience. Romney could have scored some points by making a serious effort to reach the black community on topics like family values. He could have gone Machiavellian and tried to score points on gay marriage. He could have cribbed from McCain's speech. He did work the unemployment stats, but in my mind that was just to reinforce his attacks on the Obama economy.
Instead, he deliberately played the audience reaction, in order to score points with the tea party. This kind of behavior reinforces the "Romney as sociopath" meme - it's not enough to get away with using the NAACP to rail against Obamacare, he has to mock them by announcing that he knows what's best for black people, and that otherwise he wouldn't be running for president, because his first and foremost commitment is to their wellbeing.
Well where the hell does this claimed concern for African American families come from? How has Romney been working for their betterment? When's the last time he took a political stand on this issue?
Yes, Romney knows what's best for black people. They should learn to submit to their corporate overlords, along with "families of any color". He knows what's best for gay people - they have no right to marry. He knows what's best for women, and poor people, and the middle class, and Latinos, and students, and the military, and Wall Street, and farmers, and illegal immigrants, and everyone else. If only we could see what was in his heart, we would all kneel down, accept Romney as our savior, and vote for him.