Romney 9/11 speech: Chance to make up for convention omission?
(Read article summary)Romney addresses the National Guard convention Tuesday, amid lingering criticism over his decision not to mention Afghanistan or thank the troops in his address at the GOP convention.
With Tuesday's national-security speech commemorating the attacks of 9/11, Mitt Romney has a chance to move beyond a misstep that has ballooned into a real problem for his campaign: his failure to mention the war in Afghanistan or to thank the troops during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
The omission quickly became the biggest take-away from Mr. Romney’s otherwise well-received but unremarkable speech, and the candidate has been fending off questions about it ever since.
It has given Democrats an opening to further exploit a rare national-security edge for their side. Polls have shown President Obama leading Romney on national security and foreign policy throughout the campaign, though those issues are not nearly as important to voters as the economy.
A Politico piece out Tuesday details the “Kerry-ization of Mitt Romney,” referring to a coordinated effort by Democrats to portray Romney as “untrustworthy on national security,” just as Republicans portrayed Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 campaign. Ironically, this time it was Senator Kerry himself who launched the attack, with a scathing speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which he said: “no nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech.”
