Today Mitt Romney is in Houston to address the annual convention of the NAACP, and I’m here as a citizen-blogger to witness and write about it -- POV.
Mitt has been hustling this week. On Sunday he was in New York, working the Republican wealth network in the Hamptons and picking up a million or three at a $25,000-a-plate dinner at David Koch’s place in Southhampton. Then it was off to Aspen on Monday to work the western wealth network.
In the next couple of weeks the Romneys will be heading on to London for some Olympic dressage. It’s a busy time for the candidate, and for the party of big busyness.
I take the train in a light Houston rain and arrive downtown shortly after 8, giving myself extra time to get through security before Romney’s scheduled appearance in the George H. Brown Convention Center (“Southern Hospitality with a Cosmopolitan Twist”). Prince Willard is scheduled to speak at 9:30.
NAACP leaders and members are here for the 103rd annual meeting of the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the country. Some old-timers here will remember the Southern hospitality of Little Rock, Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. They’ll remember the years when Dixiecrats, in political white flight, flew to the Republican Party during the 1960s and 70s, responding to Richard Nixon’s successful “Southern strategy” using race as a wedge to divide Democrats.
That was about the time black voters began to give up hope on the party of Lincoln. Romney is here today to offer them an engraved invitation back to the party.
Give Romney some credit for having the fortitude (in the face of painful political necessity) to come before a large NAACP audience today to try to make inroads among African-American voters, a decidedly Democratic constituency since FDR, and even moreso since LBJ.
It’s not easy to get Republican pols to venture outside a Fox Newsroom to face an audience of this sort. The fact that Romney is here at all is noteworthy, at least as a footnote to a footnote in American political history.
I’ve been looking forward to this speech ever since I read syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts’ letter to Romney, urging him to “be specific” in his address to NAACP and to leave his standard Republican platitudes at home. (I’m not sure which of Romney’s homes that would be.) It was Pitts’ column that gave me the idea to come to this week’s convention, blogging pad at the ready, and to join NAACP myself -- so as not to be a free rider here, but also to do my part to support the work.
Leonard Pitts is not the only voice to offer advice lately to Romney’s stable of speechwriters about what to say and not say in Houston today. One satirical video has a semifictional right-wing media consultant advising Gov. Romney to “go … all Martin Luther King on them.” More seriously, The Root and Roland Martin, among others, seem to agree on at least one thing: “Please don’t bring that old ‘Party of Lincoln’ crap.” Tell us something new about our future with the G.O.P. And be specific.
The show is about to start. The press corps on the platform behind me fires up a dozen Big News cameras and starts videoing, tweeting, texting, typing and whatever else press corps do nowadays. I’d be sitting in the press section myself, but I’m … [hangs head] just a local citizen-blogger. Maybe after the speech I’ll follow the press around as an embedded blogger and report on them. It would be meta-something.
Instead I’m sitting with the rank and file NAACP membership, and happy to be here, as Garrison Keillor says.
Quiet now. Organist softly plays “America” as Romney enters from backstage right. Applause, with some in front (the Romney section?) standing to welcome him.
Executive Summary (close paraphrases from notes)
Romney says he loves the organ music./Thanks NAACP for its hospitality./ Makes joke about preceding Joe Biden (coming tomorrow) in the week’s program; hopes Obama doesn’t think NAACP is “playing favorites.”
Romney says he wants to make his case to “every voter.” “Your vote has to be earned.”/Wants to represent Americans of any race, creed, sexual orientation, rich and poor and everything between./Says “the rich will do just fine” whether he wins or not. [Some laughter from the audience. Truer words never spoken.] Says he cares about “middle class.” [Elderly lady two rows behind me shouts “Lie! Liar!," injecting an element of gospel-style call-and-response into the performance.]
Romney moves on. Racial barriers to the presidency have come down with the election of Obama. Yet during Obama’s administration, African-American unemployment has gone up./Schools are still deficient./Frederick Douglass said it is “easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” [Murmer of approval.] /Impatience is understandable. We’ve waited long enough for improvements./Romney promises new directions [unspecified] in federal policy.
Romney shifts focus to family. Those who wait to marry, and then have their first child, are dramatically less likely to be poor./"I will defend traditional marriage.”
Romney reaffirms his belief in “free enterprise.”/Supports Keystone pipeline./ Would go after “cheaters like China.”/Would “eliminate every non-essential, expensive program I can find. That includes Obamacare.” [Crowd erupts with displeasure. A few seconds of loud jeering.]
Romney pauses and goes on. He says he would work to reform Medicare and Social Security by means-testing benefits. [Smattering of positive response. Guy on my row says “I could go for that.”]/Will restore “economic freedom” and protect “entrepreneurs, dreamers, those who innovate” from “being crushed.”/Will cut growth of government./Obama hasn’t solved problems [Many in crowd object loudly: Congress! Congress! Congress is the problem, not Obama.]
“I do not have a hidden agenda.”/Life will be better for African-Americans under my administration. [Skeptical response.]/Schools will improve; look what we did in Massachusetts to raise educational standards and create state scholarships for top high school graduates./Teacher’s unions were not happy when I promoted charter schools, with the help of the legislature’s black caucus, to “give students a chance” and a choice./I won’t let any special interests get in the way. [Some audience members and staff try to shush occasional catcalls from two older women behind me. Staffer says “We don’t behave that way.”]
Romney says “I promise that your hospitality to me today will be returned. I will seek your counsel.” [More skeptical murmers.] I will come back next year if invited. /No political party is perfect. But my father [Gov. George Romney of Michigan] continues to inspire me by the way he dealt with every person fairly. [Lady behind me shouts “He’s not you!]
Romney concludes on a religious note. Every person is a child of God. God’s mercy endures. He has a plan “bigger than ours.” [A few Amens]./ Fleeting reference to MLK's faith./Romney concludes the 25-minute speech with "Thank you, and God bless every one of you." Half-standing ovation.
Romney never gets very specific about what his own larger plans are.
Gospel organ starts up “God Bless America.”
This speech reminds me of the traditional “call and response” black gospel preaching I’ve seen and read about. Gospel congregations are not passive. The preacher speaks. The congregation responds with feeling.
In this audience, though, despite a fair number of black Romney supporters sitting toward the front and greeting him with a standing ovation, most of this audience is decidedly not responding “Amen” to this preacher’s message.
Romney exits. Fair applause. He’s on to his next historic event, an Olympic horse-prancing competition in London.
I mill around afterwards, looking for news media celebrities to follow around and photograph in my newly-invented role as an embedded blogger covering the people who cover the news. (Kidding, folks.) Maybe I can get an autograph. Has anyone seen Colbert?
At the back of the cavernous hall I watch news reporters interview NAACP spokespeople and participants after the show. CNN is there, along with BET, BuzzFeed, and several other news and entertainment outlets.
The organist is playing a gospel hymn that goes “If you ever needed the Lord, sure do need him now.” I overhear one man telling a television interviewer, “If [Obama] doesn’t get back in office, we won’t be living next door to hell. We’ll be in hell.”
This is Danagram, mild-mannered reporter on the daily planet, coming to you almost live from the scene in Houston, July 11, 2012.
http://open.salon.com/blog/danagram
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