Romney Team Outpaces Obama in Fund-Raising Again

Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee took in $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday, as Republican donors rallied behind their presumptive nominee with the national convention only a few weeks away. The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising with the Democratic National Committee topped out at about $75 million — the third month in a row they have brought in less than the Republicans.

Mr. Obama’s team appears to have all but conceded the money race, deluging the president’s grass-roots supporters this summer with fund-raising e-mails and warning supporters of the financial advantage that the Republicans will hold going into the final months of the campaign.

“Make no mistake, we will be outspent,” a senior campaign official said during a conference call with reporters last month.

More detailed information about the July fund-raising, including how much the candidates themselves raised and how they spent their money, has not yet been released by the two candidates. All campaigns are required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

But the Republican figure keeps Mr. Romney and his party on pace to bring in $800 million for the cycle, the target set by Mr. Romney’s team in April. Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations under $250, as Mr. Romney worked to increase his appeal among small donors.

“Americans are clearly looking for a change in the White House,” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the R.N.C., said in a statement. “While President Obama claims that his economic plan ‘worked,’ the American people know that his policies haven’t worked and he has failed to fix our economy.”

Because Mr. Obama easily outraised Mr. Romney all of last year and early this year, the president does not need to beat Mr. Romney in the months ahead to bring in the roughly $750 million his team has said they wish to raise in this cycle.

But heavy spending on field organizers, technology and advertising — more than $400 million through the end of June — appears to have cost Mr. Obama the impressive cash advantage he once had. And Democratic-leaning “super PACs” have raised far less money than their Republican counterparts, forcing Mr. Obama to spend heavily on attack advertisements against Mr. Romney, even while conservative groups pummel him on the airwaves.

The Republicans have used the cash surge of the last two months to begin trying to match Mr. Obama’s field advantage, opening about 250 offices around the country, recruiting volunteers and hiring more than 600 staff members for the fall campaign. On Saturday, the R.N.C. announced that organizers had made their one millionth voter contact of the election cycle. The committee has also begun running general election advertisements, as Mr. Romney began doing in May.

The campaign, the Republican National Committee and a joint fund established by the Republicans to raise presidential campaign cash ended July with $185.9 million in cash on hand. They did not disclose what part of the money would end up in Mr. Romney’s campaign coffers, which can accept only $5,000 from each donor every election cycle, and how much would go to the R.N.C., which can accept more than 10 times that amount from each donor.

Mr. Obama did not disclose how much money his campaign and the D.N.C. have on hand.

The strong fund-raising puts renewed pressure on Mr. Obama to bring in more cash and suggests certainty that Mr. Romney will remain financially competitive with an incumbent whose fund-raising prowess has long been a hallmark.

Underscoring the campaign’s changed fortunes, Mr. Obama’s campaign is no longer announcing its fund-raising totals in lush videos featuring his senior staff or field workers. Instead, on Monday, not long after Mr. Romney made his announcement, Mr. Obama’s campaign put out its total in a brief message to his Twitter followers, thanking them for their money.

“Every bit helps,” the campaign wrote.

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Campaigns heating up as primary approaches

Arizona voters are getting an earful of claims, counterclaims, robocalls and mailers as legislative candidates brawl before the primary election next month.

It's a sign of how vital the Aug.28 primary is to legislative fortunes: In many districts, the winners are virtually guaranteed a seat at the Capitol.

That's a testament to the lopsided nature of many of Arizona's legislative districts. Although the districts have new boundaries this year due to the once-a-decade state redistricting, many of them still tilt heavily toward one major party or the other.

Voter registration closes Monday night; early voting begins Thursday.

In all, there are primary races for more than one-third of the 60 House seats, and one-fifth of the 30 Senate seats.

Campaign fireworks have included battles over signs, complaints of sloppy financial reporting and public allegations based on rumors.

Pollster Earl de Berge said such tactics are an easy way to avoid talking about the nitty-gritty of a candidate's positions.

"They're distractions and don't focus on the issues that voters are interested in," he said.

Some of the feistiest legislative races, and the most consequential, are for the state Senate.

Two GOP primaries highlight the ideological split in the Republican Party, pitting "tea party" conservatives against "common-sense" candidates.

On the Democratic side, ideological distinctions take a backseat to personal ambitions, as the dueling candidates in three races aren't offering starkly different agendas.

Republican races

The outcome of two Republican races in particular could determine whether the 2013 Senate tacks more toward a centrist approach or retains the tea-party tone set in 2011 when Russell Pearce was president.

In Mesa, Pearce is trying to make a comeback after voters recalled him in November. He is facing off against businessman Bob Worsley in Legislative District 25. The race has some of the overtones of Pearce's recall campaign, with disputes over endorsements and questions about the legitimacy of some of his backers.

After complaints that Pearce was recycling old endorsements to make them look like current support, Pearce's campaign website now clarifies them as "past endorsements."

Pearce is touting support from the Arizona Teacher's Association, but local educators say they've never heard of the group. Caroline Condit, the group's treasurer, said it consists of "educators of all levels, supervisors down to homeschoolers" but she said they are not involved with the public schools.

Worsley has support from many of the groups that backed Sen. Jerry Lewis in his successful recall race against Pearce. Worsley is attempting to paint Pearce as a "one-note" candidate fixated on illegal immigration, while Worsley says he wants to tackle a broader agenda that includes job creation, school choice and border security.

Pearce disputes the characterization; he doesn't even list immigration as one of his key issues and touts education as a priority. He said the public-school system needs to be shaken up and calls education reform the "civil-rights fight of the next decade."

Next door, in Legislative District 16, Sen. Rich Crandall is battling Rep. John Fillmore for the GOP nomination to the Senate.

Crandall, the Senate Education Committee chairman, put pragmatic concerns above party-line adherence on several key votes in recent years, most notably on bills trying to exert state muscle on immigration issues.

Fillmore has sided more with the tea-party wing of the GOP. An Apache Junction small-business man, he complains Crandall "carpetbagged" into the district, which stretches from east Mesa into Pinal County. Crandall initially decided to sit out the 2012 race after the redistricting process put him in the same district as Pearce. But he changed his mind and shifted his sights farther east to take on Fillmore, a one-term lawmaker.

Fillmore has gone on the offensive in the campaign. He challenged the adequacy of the signatures on Crandall's nominating petitions, but lost.

He filed a complaint with Mesa police over a campaign-sign dispute, and then supported a fellow lawmaker's ethics complaint against Crandall over the senator's reaction to the sign flap. The Senate Ethics Committee chairman dismissed the charge; the police complaint is pending.

Democratic battles

Among Democratic Senate races, two newcomers are trying to oust long-serving legislators and a former state senator is trying to return.

Community organizer Raquel Terán is challenging Sen. Robert Meza in the West Valley's Legislative District 30, an area with a large Latino population. The two have filed dueling campaign complaints against each other. They have yet to be resolved.

Terán is criticizing Meza's level of engagement at the Legislature, charging Meza is frequently absent and has missed votes, to the detriment of his constituents.

"I believe we need to be there for the whole process," Terán said of lawmakers being present for daily sessions. "When we're not there, who is representing the District 30 constituents?"

Meza acknowledged he doesn't spend a lot of time on the Senate floor during daily debate sessions, and said he believes his time is better spent dealing directly with constituent concerns. Senate records show Meza missed four votes out of 692 this year and three out of 671 last year.

For his part, Meza charges that Terán is a one-issue candidate, interested only in immigration. In contrast, Meza said, he is "multidimensional," working on a variety of issues including education and the economy.

In the southwest Valley, newcomer Victor Jett Contreras is trying to unseat Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, who has served the area since 1999. The campaign took a turn into the mud when Contreras tried to paint Landrum Taylor as an insincere candidate, saying he'd heard a rumor she intended to resign from the Senate soon after re-election and run for the Phoenix City Council.

Landrum Taylor denied the charge, and Contreras has backtracked on his claim.

In central Phoenix, former Sen. Ken Cheuvront is trying to return to the Senate after sitting out for two years due to term limits.

He's in a heated battle with Rep. Katie Hobbs that has spilled over into the District 24 House race.

In that contest, Cheuvront's mother, Jean Cheuvront McDermott, is one of four Democrats running for two seats. Rep. Chad Campbell, House minority leader, sees her presence on the ballot as a rebuke to him, stemming from a dispute with Cheuvront.

Cheuvront McDermott denies her son put her up to running, and said she's long wanted to get into the Legislature.

Campbell, who was hoping not to have a testy primary, said the intraparty warfare is regrettable. Competition is good, he said, if it exposes contrasting ideas on how to work on public policy.

But that's not the case with Democrats this year, he said.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Will Latinos heed the siren song of a disingenuous GOP this fall?

In 2008, Latinos helped put Barack Obama in the White House.

In 2010, they helped the Democrats hold the Senate.

In 2012, they will again flex considerable muscle.

About 50,000 Latinos reach voting age every month in the United States. Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, says his group is engaged in "robust" voter-registration efforts in Arizona, California, Texas, Florida and New York. He expects 12.2million Latinos to vote in November. That would be a 26 percent increase over 2008.

Large Latino populations in toss-up states such as Florida, Nevada and Colorado could make a difference in who occupies the White House next year. A Washington Post/ABC poll released last week shows President Obama and Mitt Romney tied among all registered voters at 47 percent each. But polls consistently show Obama well ahead of Romney among Latinos.

"You need the Hispanic vote to win the presidential election," says Vargas.

However, a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News and Telemundo poll found only two-thirds of Latino voters were enthusiastic about voting this fall, compared with 89 percent of "tea party" supporters.

If Democrats take the Latino vote for granted, "they do so at their peril," Vargas told me.

If Republicans attract large Latino support, they will do so by inducing selective amnesia.

Both Obama and Romney spoke to NALEO's convention last month.

The president looked familiar and offered his usual upbeat message.

But GOP primary voters wouldn't have recognized the former governor of Massachusetts. It was a kinder, gentler Romney who invited Latinos to his party. He was not the same guy who told a primary-debate audience that Texas Gov. Rick Perry's support for in-state tuition for undocumented students was "a magnet to draw illegals." Not the guy who said Arizona had the right idea on immigration.

Yet even as Romney zips into his Much More Moderate Man costume for the general election, hard-line immigration messages are an integral part of GOP primary races. When speaking to its base, the GOP remains uninterested in the impact of ugly rhetoric on real people. Undocumented immigrants are fair game, and any collateral damage to citizen Latinos is tough luck.

This says a lot about the insincerity of the Republicans' appeal to Latino voters.

In Arizona's GOP Senate primary, Rep. Jeff Flake looks tough as he announces his approval of an ad that criticizes opponent Wil Cardon for employing "illegal aliens." After the primary, Flake will no doubt drop that offensive term -- just like he dropped his long-held support of comprehensive immigration reform in order to court the party faithful when he decided to run for the Senate.

Flake, who is expected to win the primary, will run in November against Democrat Richard Carmona, a former surgeon general in the George W. Bush administration and a Latino.

Vargas points out that Latinos don't automatically vote for Latinos, and he's right.

In 2008, Republican Brian Sandoval became Nevada's first Latino governor, with only 33 percent Latino vote. But, in that same election, support from 69 percent of Latino voters helped return Democrat Sen. Harry Reid to Washington, according to the Pew Research Center.

What's been consistent is Latino support for Democrats. Some Arizona Democrats hope Carmona's candidacy will drive Latino turnout and give Obama a reverse-coattail tug.

But Obama has some credibility problems with Latino voters, too. He did not keep his promise to make immigration reform a priority. It was only after earning a reputation as the Deportation King that he decided -- last summer -- to institute prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases. Last month, he offered an administrative version of the Dream Act. It was a calculated political play.

But Obama is also the first president to put a Latina on the Supreme Court, and his language and tone have been about promise, not poison. That says a lot about the sincerity of his commitment to honor diversity.

But is it enough? Like the rest of the country, Latinos list the economy as their top concern. Like the rest of the country, they are being asked to stick with this president through a painfully slow recovery. Unlike the rest of the country, they have seen people who look like them demonized by a Republican Party that now wants their support.

What they believe and how they vote will matter.

Reach Valdez at linda.valdez@arizonarepublic.com.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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GOP books Hard Rock hotel-casino for RNC convention week

According to a Tampa Tribune report, someone within the GOP has booked the entire, 250-room Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa for the duration of next month's RNC convention.

The hotel wasn't on the list of hotels reserved back in May through the party's official booking arm. But hotel-casino officials confirmed to the Tribune that someone linked to the GOP booked the property, which - following a $75 million expansion - now contains the world's fifth-largest casino. The Tribune tells us:

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"Casino executives confirm that someone within the Republican Party organization has made an unofficial reservation for not just a few rooms, but the entire 250-room hotel at the heart of the casino for Florida Republicans — for the entire week of the convention."

Who'll get to stay at the Hard Rock?

It's not clear who booked the hotel or who they booked it for, the story says. Spokesmen for both the RNC Committee on Arrangements, which booked about 150,000 area rooms for the convention in May, and the Tampa Bay Host Committee told the Tribune that they didn't make the reservation.

"Speculation is that it's being reserved for corporate high rollers, big donors or high-level GOP elected officials," the article says.

What is clear is that the booking's an expensive one.

Based on $129 per night room rates for August - a rate quoted by the hotel before demand increases due to the citywide convention - the five-day convention booking for all 250 rooms would cost $161,250 in rate alone, excluding food and beverage and other incidentals, the Tribune reports.

The hotel-casino just completed a $75 million expansion and renovation that makes it the world's sixth-largest casino, based on gaming positions or number of seats at a table or slot.

Readers: Comments?

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Supplement industry boosts Romney campaign by $4.5M

WASHINGTON – Executives with companies selling everything from energy drinks to weight-loss pills made from African mango-seed extracts are among the ranks of Republican Mitt Romney's top fundraisers, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

By Evan Vucci, AP

Mitt Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers.

By Evan Vucci, AP

Mitt Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers.

Overall, individuals and companies with ties to the nutritional and dietary supplement industry have poured more than $4.5 million into campaign accounts benefiting Romney's presidential ambitions, federal records show. The spending comes as the industry is at odds with the Food and Drug Administration over proposed rules that would govern the use of new dietary ingredients.

Unlike the pharmaceutical industry, supplement makers long have been exempted from federal review of their products for safety or effectiveness before being marketed. "It is a very loosely regulated industry," said David Schardt, a senior nutritionist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group advocates for food and nutrition safety.

"It is viewed as a Wild West arena, where virtually anything goes," he said.

Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers — bucking a practice that goes back to the 2000 presidential election.

By contrast, President Obama has disclosed the names of 532 people who raised at least $50,000 for his re-election.

In recent weeks, USA TODAY compiled a list of roughly 1,200 individuals helping Romney collect campaign cash by reviewing campaign news releases, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, invitations obtained by the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation and news accounts.

Industry figures aiding Romney include:

•Rex Maughan, the CEO of Forever Living and his wife, Ruth, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., listed as members of Romney's "Arizona finance committee" in a September campaign news release. The Maughans and employees of the company, whose products include aloe vera drinks and gels, have donated more than $102,000 to Romney and his joint fundraising efforts with the Republican Party, FEC records show.

•Miguel Fernandez, chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, a Florida private-equity firm whose portfolio includes supplement manufacturer Nutriforce Nutrition. Last year, he donated $500,000 to a pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future. Another $500,000 came from MBF Family Investments, which shares an address with his company.

•Executives with Utah-based supplement companies. They include David Lisonbee, CEO of 4Life Research, who gave $500,000 to the super PAC this year; and Steve Lund, co-founder of Nu Skin Enterprises, a Provo, Utah, nutrition and skin-care company. Eli Publishing and F8 LLC, which share a Provo address, donated $1 million each to the super PAC. State records list Lund as Eli Publishing's registered agent.

•Others in the industry have helped host fundraising events for Romney, such as Daryl Allen, a distributor for USANA, which sells vitamins and weight-loss aids. She and her husband, Robert, were listed among the "San Diego chairs" for a September breakfast reception for Romney at diet guru Jenny Craig's Del Mar, Calif., home.

Frank VanderSloot, who heads an Idaho-based supplement and wellness firm and is a Romney fundraiser, said his support for the former Massachusetts governor "has nothing to do with the kind of business we are in. It has to do with the fact that we are in business."

VanderSloot, who sits on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, said Obama "is far off base in his understanding of what creates a healthy economy." VanderSloot has donated more than $1.1 million to Romney and Restore Our Future.

In a statement, Lisonbee of 4Life Research said Romney's track record in business "is encouraging for entrepreneurs." The company's president, Steve Tew, emphasized that the donation was a personal contribution from Lisonbee and reflects neither the company's nor industry's political views.

Nu Skin's Sydnee Fox said Lund's contribution was personal and separate from company business.

Fernandez was unavailable, an aide said. Other executives did not return calls.

Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg provided the campaign's standard response to inquiries about donors: "People who support Mitt Romney do so because they support his pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda for the country."

Several of Romney's backers distribute their products through direct sales instead of retail stores. Direct sellers "tend to be very entrepreneurial," possibly explaining their support for a Republican, said Steve Mister, who heads the industry's Council for Responsible Nutrition.

Indeed, more than two-thirds of the industry's contributions to federal candidates' main campaign accounts have gone to Republicans so far in this election, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign money.

Mister said his group supports both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who understand the industry and has taken no position on the presidential race.

The industry also has long roots in Utah, where Salt Lake City native and herbalist John Christopher established a School of Natural Healing in the 1950s. Today, Utah's supplement industry is a powerful economic force with $7.1 billion in annual revenues, said Loren Israelsen, a Utah resident and executive director of the United Natural Products Alliance.

Romney is an adopted son of the Beehive State, where he ran the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 and has drawn substantial financial support from the state's fellow Mormons.

Supplement trade groups say they are well regulated. Rules adopted in 2007 now require manufacturers to report serious illnesses linked to their products; the FDA began plant inspections in 2008 to enforce new rules on how supplements are made.

The industry now is pushing the FDA to rescind what it claims are overly broad regulations proposed last year on new supplement ingredients. The proposal seeks to comply with a 1994 law that declared anything already sold as a supplement was considered safe, but said new ingredients introduced after that date would be subject to FDA scrutiny before being marketed.

"We have to have a certain amount of regulation to give consumers the confidence that the products are safe," Mister said. But the new proposal "would have a crippling effect on innovation."

Contributing: Gregory Korte and Christopher Schnaars

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Obama puts $46.7M into ads, outspends what he raised in June

WASHINGTON – Competing hard to retain the White House, President Obama spent more than he raised in June for the second month in a row as he unleashed a torrent of advertising attacking Republican rival Mitt Romney, new campaign finance reports show.

By John Raoux, AP

President Obama speaks at a campaign event last Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla.

By John Raoux, AP

President Obama speaks at a campaign event last Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla.

Romney and the Republican Party, however, outraised him and ended the month with more cash reserves than Obama and the Democratic National Committee for what polls indicate is a very tight race heading into this summer's political conventions.

Last month alone, Obama pumped $46.7 million into advertising — ranging from TV commercials in battleground states to Internet ads seeking donations. That's more than twice the $19.1 million Romney spent on advertising in June, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the reports filed late Friday to the Federal Election Commission.

He also made new investments in staff — with 779 people on his payroll in June, up from 703 a month earlier.

Romney nearly doubled his spending in June over the previous month and increased the size of his staff by 85% in a month's time. Even so, his reports show he ramped up to just 272 employees last month. Some key players in the operation, such as top Romney fundraiser Spencer Zwick, are not listed on the payroll. However, Zwick's Boston firm collected more than $833,000 last month in fundraising consulting fees.

Romney also saw an uptick in smaller donations.

Donations of $200 or less accounted for about 30% of all his receipts in June, up from 18% a month earlier. His campaign had boasted that it had collected more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the June 28 Supreme Court ruling that Obama's health care law was constitutional.

Smaller donors are crucial to campaigns because they can be tapped repeatedly for money before they hit the $5,000 contribution limit for primary and general elections.

Outside Republican groups also have maintained a formidable advantage over similar organizations created by Democrats. That gives Romney's allies the resources to run hard-hitting advertising against the president until Romney can tap into his substantial general-election accounts once his party's nominating convention concludes in early September.

Restore Our Future, a super PAC aiding Romney, raised $20.7 million in June — its best month yet and more than three times the $6.2 million collected by the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action super PAC.

Nearly half Restore Our Future's June haul — $10 million — came from casino mogul and billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. But other wealthy Republicans wrote big checks, including Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who gave $2 million, and Dallas real-estate developer Trammell Crow, who donated $500,000. Another $500,000 came from his holding company.

John Childs, the Florida-based CEO of a private-equity firm, donated $1 million to the pro-Romney super PAC and another $500,000 last month to American Crossroads. American Crossroads, a super PAC founded with help from GOP strategist Karl Rove, is spending more than $9.3 million on pro-Romney advertising this week in nine battleground states.

Seven-figure donors to the pro-Obama super PAC in June include actor Morgan Freeman, who gave $1 million, and Qualcomm's billionaire founder Irwin Mark Jacobs, who donated $2 million.

Contributing: Ray Locker

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Romney speech draws jeers

HOUSTON — HOUSTON Mitt Romney declared Wednesday before a skeptical NAACP crowd that he'd do more for African-Americans than Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. He drew jeers when he lambasted the Democrat's policies.

"If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him," Romney told the group's annual convention. Pausing as some in the crowd heckled, he added, "You take a look!"

"For real?" yelled someone in the crowd.

The reception occasionally was rocky though generally polite as the Republican presidential candidate sought to woo a Democratic bloc that voted heavily for Obama four years ago and is certain to do so again. Romney was booed when he vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law, and the crowd interrupted him when he accused Obama of failing to spark a more robust economic recovery.

"I know the president has said he will do those things. But he has not. He cannot. He will not," Romney said as the crowd's murmurs turned to groans.

At other points, Romney earned scattered applause for his promises to create jobs and improve education.

Four months before the election, Romney's appearance at the NAACP convention was a direct, aggressive appeal for support from across the political spectrum in what polls show is a close contest. Romney doesn't expect to win a majority of black voters -- 95percent backed Obama in 2008 -- but he's trying to show independent and swing voters that he's willing to reach out to diverse audiences, while demonstrating that his campaign and the Republican Party he leads are inclusive.

The stakes are high. Romney's chances in battleground states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- which have huge numbers of blacks who helped Obama win four years ago -- will improve if he can cut into the president's advantage by persuading black voters to support him or if they stay home on Election Day.

Obama spoke to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 2008 campaign, as did his Republican opponent that year, Sen. John McCain. The president has dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to address the group on Thursday.

Within minutes of taking the stage, Romney made note of his opponent's historic election achievement -- and then accused him of not doing enough to help black families on everything from family policy to education to health care.

"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," Romney said to murmuring from the crowd.

Romney added: "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 would not be running for president."

Romney's criticism of Obama didn't set well with some in the audience.

"Dumb," said Bill Lucy, a member of the NAACP board.

William Braxton, a 59-year-old retiree from Maryland, added: "I thought he had a lot of nerve. That really took me by surprise, his attacking Obama that way."

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