Mitt Romney's secret African-American supporters

By Richard K. Barry 

This isn't going well.

This is hilarious. After getting booed during his speech at the NAACP convention, Mitt Romney told Fox News that he has plenty of black support but, see, they are afraid to say so publicly. And wouldn't you know that this "secret African-American groundswell for Mitt" just happens to be repeating the very same speaking points, albeit in private, he offered up in his comments to the NAACP.

Yup. Mitt had this to say to Fox:

I spoke with a number of African-American leaders after the event and they said, you know, a lot of folks do not want to say they will not vote for President Obama but they are disappointed in his lack of policies to improve schools.

He continued:

The president has not been able to get the job done and people want to see someone who would get the economy going so I expect to get the African-American votes, and I believe we disagree on some issues like "Obamacare" [but] on a lot of issues people see eye-to-eye, they want someone getting the economy going.

How convenient. A lot of African-Americans believe exactly what Mitt Romney believes, but no one can prove this because they are afraid to say so publicly.

As Josh Marshall at TPM says, given that Romney is polling in the single digits with African-Americans, it would also appear they are afraid to tell pollsters their real feelings.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)