Mitt Romney's Full Speech at NAACP Convention

Today Mr. Romney spoke before the NAACP Convention. Since most news outlets will focus on the moment during the speech when Mr. Romney was booed when he discussed "Obamacare," my guess is that most people will assume Mr. Romney was reamed and that the speech was a disaster. But I listened to the speech and was impressed by the fact that he was applauded several times (politely, yes, but applause is applause).

The audience applauded when he said, "With 90 percent of African-Americans voting for Democrats, some of you may wonder why a Republican would bother to campaign in the African American community, and to address the NAACP. Of course, one reason is that I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed or sexual orientation, from the poorest to the richest and everyone in between."

The audience applauded when he said, referring to black children who are disproportionately represented in under-performing schools, "Our society sends them into mediocre schools and expects them to perform with excellence, and that is not fair. Frederick Douglass observed that, 'It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.' Yet, instead of preparing these children for life, too many schools set them up for failure. Everyone in this room knows that we owe them better than that."

He was applauded when he said he would defend traditional marriage.

And the "booing" was actually an interesting moment in the speech. Yes, the audience booed, but Mr. Romney handled it in a way that I thought was very classy. He didn't seem to get flustered, he didn't ignore the booing and then carry on with his speech. Instead, he let the audience express themselves, and then, going off-script, he explained further what he meant and didn't back down. If you can't respect him for that, then you'll never respect him.

Anyway, for those who didn't watch or listen to the speech, here's the video (source: PBS NewsHour).