 Mitt Romney told members of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization on Wednesday that he would be a better president for the nation’s black families than President Obama has been.  HOUSTON — Less than four years after President Obama swept into the White House with the overwhelming support of black voters, Mitt Romney appeared on Wednesday before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with a bold claim: “If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him,” Mr. Romney said. “I believe that 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,” Mr. Romney said. “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 wouldn’t be running for president.” 
 
 Romney said that black families have suffered disproportionately under the Obama presidency, noting that the unemployment rate for African Americans rose to 14.4 percent last month, while the overall rate was 8.2 percent. In his roughly 25-minute speech at the N.A.A.C.P.’s annual convention here in Houston, Mr. Romney promised to fight teachers’ unions and repeal the president’s health care plan, both positions that are unpopular among blacks. “To do this, I will eliminate non-essential programs like Obamacare.” 
 
 While the somewhat hostile reception is likely to dominate the cable news cycle and be used as evidence by Romney’s detractors that he’s out of touch with blacks and working-class Americans, the majority of the Republican’s talking points received polite applause, even in a period of heightened racial tension after the U.S. House recently voted to hold in contempt the country’s first black attorney general. Mr. Romney mentioned his father near the end of his speech, mentioning several instances of his civil rights work and concluding: “He was a man of the fairest instincts, and a man of faith who knew that every person was a child of God.” 
 
 Though Mr. Obama was invited to address the group as well, he canceled, citing a scheduling conflict, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will speak at the convention on Thursday.
– Mitt Romney spoke to the NAACP national convention today, and most of the headlines are centering on the boos he got when he started talking about ObamaCare and the president himself. He endured three rounds of jeering in all, which amounted to the "most hostile reception of his campaign so far," according to the Washington Post. The candidate himself appeared "visibly unsettled," it adds. Politico, too, uses "hostile" to describe the crowd at points, though it adds that most of Romney's speech was received politely. The first boos came after this line, notes AP: "I am going to eliminate every non-essential, expensive program that I can find—and that includes ObamaCare." The New York Times says he also got some cackles for this assertion: "If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him."