Three Reasons the NAACP Shouldn’t Have Booed Romney

The Republican presidential candidate is using the booing incident to his advantage.

The media has replayed footage over and over again of a seemingly cringe-worthy moment during Mitt Romney’s appearance Wednesday at the NAACP national convention in Houston – the crowd booing as the candidate discussed repealing Obamacare.

But Romney’s reportedly far from embarrassed over the incident. Instead, he’s using the jeers he received to his advantage. Accordingly, the NAACP should think twice before booing a conservative politician again.

Here are three reasons progressive groups should not boo conservative candidates.

Booing Elicits Sympathy: The public isn’t exactly weeping for Romney after the NAACP audience booed him, but people are giving him credit for just showing up to the event. President George W. Bush turned down numerous invitations to appear at NAACP events before finally doing so in 2006. Romney supporters and detractors alike acknowledge that at least he accepted the offer to appear and have characterized him as courageous for doing so. The fact that he was booed during his speech makes Romney appear all the braver.

Romney Appears As if He’s Not Pandering: Why was Romney booed by the NAACP? He pointed out his plans to get rid of Obamacare, even though he knew that his message wouldn’t resonate with the black crowd before him. Conservatives such as “The View’s” Elizabeth Hasselbeck are patting Romney on the back for not pandering to the crowd.

She said during Thursday’s episode of the talk show that many other politicians would have tweaked their message to please their audience. Romney didn’t do that. That decision makes him appear as if he believes in his message and not at all like the flip-flopper his Republican rivals described him as during the primaries.

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Booing Called Attention To The Applause Romney Received: The mainstream media so heavily rotated the clip of Romney being booed that conservatives are screaming “media bias!” They’ve pointed out that it’s unfair to focus on the one Romney line that elicited boos given that the crowd actually applauded Romney many times throughout his speech.

What’s most worrying for liberals is that the NAACP audience actually gave Romney a standing ovation after he finished speaking. That turn of events likely would have gone unnoticed had the media not paid so much attention to the boos Romney received. Now, Romney detractors are scratching their heads as they pinpoint what he said to strike a chord with the NAACP.