look, i would have approached the contrast with the president in a little different fashion, and the other point that i would make is that my dad used to tell me, and i have a friend who also says this, tell me who you walk with and i ll tell you who you are, and one of the things that i want to know and folks in that hall wanted to know, and i m sure you want to know, is who has been around him in terms of advocating policy positions, you know. who is in his closest circle that is african-american or latino, and what impact have they had on the policy direction that he has gone in the past and he will go in the future. i don t think he closed the sale on that front. now let me talk to you about what i thought he focused on. he focused on the family.
we are a very family oriented community. we are concerned about the next generation and i thought he hit the ball out of the park focusing on the family. and that was a key. that was certainly a moment i noted as well, his use of the phrase traditional marriage. we know the president in coming out in support of gay marriage, marriage equality in some circles, took a risk in terms of alienating some of those folks in the african-american community who are not on board with the notion of marriage equality. that seemed to be almost a political calculation on the governor s part to try and perhaps curry favor with an audience that he has not found a that s not fair, alex. he has supported marriage as a union between one man and one woman. the republican platform speaks to it. he embraces that platform. so i think he was authentic on it. i don t think it was political calculation there. i think that was his strong suit
11% in 2004, he in fact will tip the scale in his direction. competitively speaking. ken blackwell, thank you, sir, for your time and thoughts. i m sure we will try and lure you back on the program as the election season continues. just throw the bait. i ll bite. you got it. michael eric dyson, let s talk about this performance, organs and all at the naacp conference. what ken blackwell says is can mitt romney actually do better than john mccain in the african-american community? is this the beginning of some sort of movement on those numbers? we don t know but he s got to try. i m going to tell you what, i want to give him credit for stepping up into the arena, so to speak. he knows beforehand that this is not going to be his natural ally. he knows that the overwhelming majority of those folks are on president obama s side. but you know, if you re going to talk to minorities, you should at least for a day experience
not a poor person s house, that s a upper middle class home, and she doesn t have a husband around, it s a white woman, and the kids with failure to launch. is that a smart add? i think there are two predicates he is trying to lay down there he will reinforce or he believes a romney campaign will reinforce. i liked what i heard, i m disappointed with the results. that is the theme. and the idea of children living at home and my retirement less certain than it was. they play on fears up and down. i had a romney person say to me wow, they had the same focus groups we had. it was the same focus groups. so this narrows the gender gab, and they can win women back, they will not get african-american or latino. look at northern virginia,