FORT WORTH, Tex. — Mitt Romney headed to Texas on Tuesday, making his way across the state for back-to-back days of fund-raisers. But before he started, he laid out his fundamental campaign message to voters at an office systems warehouse here, arguing that the economy had stalled under President Obama, and that Mr. Obama did not deserve credit for any improvements that might occur between now and November.
“I do hope things are getting better,” Mr. Romney told the crowd of several hundred people, who braved the heat and blasting country music to hear him speak. “I really hope that things are getting better. And there’s some signs things are getting better, albeit at a very slow rate. The president wants to hang onto that twig, that maybe he made things a little better, but the truth is, he did not make things better. If they get better, it’s in spite of him, not because of him.”
Mr. Romney also took aim at Mr. Obama’s new re-election campaign slogan, “Forward.”
“There’s a lot of people in this country having hard times,” Mr. Romney said. “And in the light of that, it’s kind of surprising to me that the president has chosen as his campaign slogan, ‘Forward.’ ”
“Forward over a cliff?” he asked, to laughter. “Look, I think it’s time for a change, not going forward with our president.”
Mr. Romney has cast himself as a turnaround expert who can use his years in the private sector to help fix a struggling economy, and his challenge now is to welcome any good economic news, while still denying Mr. Obama credit for signs of growth or general economic improvement.
Mr. Romney also made sure to give a shout-out to Texas, which last week helped officially push him to the number of delegates — 1,144 — to become the Republican Party’s nominee, and even obliquely alluded to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who was one of his rivals during the nominating contests.
“Thank you, Texas, for taking me over the line and helping me get the nomination,” he said. “Your governor has been a great friend. We had a lot of people in the contest. We all came together because we recognize there’s something we’ve got to do as Republicans — come together to defeat Barack Obama and take back America.”
Mr. Romney has struggled with Hispanic voters, and his event here was briefly interrupted by protesters chanting “Education, not deportation.” But during his visit to Texas, a border state, he also sought to present himself as a champion of Hispanic causes.
“This Obama economy has been hard particularly on Hispanic businesses and Hispanic-Americans, and I don’t know if you’ve seen the numbers recently,” Mr. Romney said, before listing a series of statistics about Hispanic voters:
“Did you know that the rate of unemployment among Hispanic-Americans rose last month to 11 percent? And that the people in this country that are poor, living in poverty, one out of three are Hispanic-American? And among young Hispanic-Americans, the poverty rate is 30 percent? And Hispanic-Americans in large measure have looked to entrepreneurs and innovators and small business to get going? But this has been such an anti-anti-small business — hostile to small business — environment that it’s been harder for those businesses to open up their doors and to hire more people.”
Winding down, Mr. Romney promised: “I can tell you that if I’m the next president of the United States, I’ll be the president for all Americans and make sure this economy is good for all Americans, Hispanic and otherwise.”
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