3:09 p.m. | Updated Mitt Romney said Sunday that he would retain elements of President Obama’s health care overhaul, blamed Republicans as much as Democrats for the “mistake” of agreeing to automatic cuts in military spending to avoid a fiscal crisis and acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s national security strategy has made America in “some ways safer.”
The remarks, made in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet The Press,” seemed to mark the emergence of a less openly partisan, more general-election-oriented Republican nominee, who is intent on appealing to middle-of-the-road voters who have not yet made up their minds. At one point, Mr. Romney said that a speech on Thursday by the country’s last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had “elevated” the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C.
When the show’s host, David Gregory, asked Mr. Romney what elements of Mr. Obama’s health care program he would maintain, Mr. Romney said he would still require that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions, just as the president’s law has.
“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Mr. Romney said, while emphasizing that he planned to replace the president’s plan with his own. “There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”
Mr. Romney, whose standing in several national polls improved slightly after the Republican convention in Tampa, said, “I’m in a better spot than I was before the convention.”
“People got to see Ann and hear our story,” Mr. Romney said, referring to this wife. “And the result of that is I’m better known, for better or for worse.”
With the Federal Reserve contemplating actions to stimulate the economy, Mr. Romney registered his disapproval, saying that he did not think that “easing monetary policy is going to make a significant difference in the job market right now.”
Mr. Romney, who has criticized the president over the rising federal debt, said he would seek to balance the budget in 8 to 10 years, perhaps after his own potential presidency would end. Any attempt to do so in a first term, Mr. Romney said, would have “a dramatic impact on the economy — too dramatic.”
Mr. Romney said he disagreed with a compromise made last year by the White House and Congressional Republicans that called for automatic cuts to military spending as a way to force a deal on deficit reduction.
“I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it,” he said.
The interview provided another forum in which Mr. Romney was questioned about the omission in his convention speech of any mention of the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Romney seemed defensive when Mr. Gregory asked him about criticism from the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard — and from others on both sides of the ideological divide — that he did not speak about the conflict in accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla.
“The Weekly Standard took you to task in your convention speech for not mentioning the war in Afghanistan one time,” Mr. Gregory asked. “Was that a mistake, with so much sacrifice in two wars over the period of this last decade?”
Mr. Romney answered, “You know, I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy,” noting that he had discussed the war in Afghanistan just before the convention, in a speech to the American Legion. “I went to the American Legion,” he said, “and spoke with our veterans there and described my policy as it relates to Afghanistan and other foreign policy and our military.”
When Mr. Gregory noted that his American Legion address did not have the same large audience as the convention speech — “tens of millions of people” — Mr. Romney replied: “You know, what I’ve found is that wherever I go, I am speaking to tens of millions of people. Everything I say is picked up by you and by others, and that’s the way it ought to be.”
In leaving the war out of his convention address, Mr. Romney seemed to have left an opening for President Obama, who said in his own speech: “Tonight, we pay tribute to the Americans who still serve in harm’s way. We are forever in debt to a generation whose sacrifice has made this country safer and more respected. We will never forget you.”
Pressed on his social views, Mr. Romney reiterated that he did not think that taxpayers should have to pay for abortions and that he wanted Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Reminded that he had once called himself a “severe” conservative, Mr. Romney seemed to play down that description. “I am as conservative as the Constitution,” he said.
In an appearance in Melborune, Fla., Sunday, President Obama, picking up where former President Bill Clinton left off, said that the budget proposals offered by Mitt Romney and Paul D. Ryan do not add up.
The president was quick to jump on appearances by his Republican rivals on the Sunday morning talk shows, in which they were asked separately what loopholes they would close to pay for their proposed tax cuts. Neither of the men answered the question.
The relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton started off rocky — Mr. Obama, after all, ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008. But after Mr. Clinton’s ringing endorsement of Mr. Obama in a well-received Democratic convention speech on Thursday, the president mentioned his Democratic predecessor at every stop on a bus tour of Florida over the weekend.
“President Clinton told us the single thing missing from my opponents’ proposal was arithmetic,” Mr. Obama told a rally here, to a burst of applause.
“When my opponents were asked about it today,” Mr. Obama said, “it was like 2 plus 1 equals 5.”
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this post misstated a subject Mitt Romney addressed during his convention speech. He did not mention conflict in Afghanistan.
