Romney On Omitting U.S. Troops From RNC Speech: ‘You Talk About Things You Think Are Important’

In an interview with Fox News this afternoon, Mitt Romney shot back at critics who complained that he didn’t mention Afghanistan or praise U.S. troops in his convention speech last week, arguing that he focused on issues that are “important.”

Fox News’s Brett Baier told Romney that “several speakers” at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this week criticized the GOP presidential nominee for the omissions (actually it was right-wing foreign policy leader Bill Kristol who started the attacks) and asked him if he had any regrets. “I only regret you’re repeating it day in and day out,” Romney said, adding that his speech focused on things that are important:

Obama fell flat

A surprisingly long parade of Democrats and media commentators who didn’t think much of the speech described it less as a failure than a fizzle—an oddly missed opportunity to frame his presidency or the nation’s choice in a fresh or inspirational light.

Even those who liked the speech generally went no further than saying that Obama was effective in doing a job that needed to be done, in a tough-minded if prosaic style.

These shoulder-shrug reactions confront Obama with a question no one expected to be asking when the week in Charlotte began: How did a president for whom stirring speeches were the engine of his rise to power manage to give, at best, only the third-most compelling speech at a convention devoted to his own re-election?

Donna Edwards Afforded Rare Speech Opportunity at Convention

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It is fairly obvious that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has tried to turn the Democratic National Convention into a coming-out party for a future presidential run.

But obscured in the political shadow he cast, it was also a big week for another Maryland Democrat: Rep. Donna Edwards.

Opportunities to leverage a convention are rare and difficult for an ambitious politician to execute. How this week played out for her is a window into how a convention can elevate a backbencher within a political party’s hierarchy.

Convention winners and losers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Democratic convention in Charlotte wasn’t flawless, but it achieved its mission of boosting President Obama’s chances of winning a second term.

The gathering of Democratic delegates yielded many winners, including the president, the first lady, the 42nd president and San Antonio’s mayor. Losers included a possible 2016 presidential candidate and the co-chairman of the platform committee.

The following is a rundown of the winners and losers:

Obama’s speech was clear-eyed and earthbound. He sounded like a changed man.

In 2008, if Barack Obama’s outdoor convention speech had been moved inside, he still would have raised the roof. When he was denied the chance to speak in the elements at Bank of America stadium this week, the closed venue seemed fitting. Obama’s speech to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, like his presidency, has a lid on it. It was workmanlike from a president who had to strain with the reality of being in office. “The times have changed,” he said, “and so have I.” At his 2008 address in Denver, audience members cried at the end of his speech. Tonight, one delegate said Biden had been more inspiring. Another said Bill Clinton’s speech was the one she would be sending around to barber shops and beauty parlors.

Obama Faces Obstacles in Holding North Carolina

Keeping North Carolina in the Democratic column this year may prove hard for President Barack Obama.

North Carolina’s unemployment rate is among the nation’s highest. Social conservatives have been buoyed by approval of a statewide ban on gay marriage, and Democrats are in disarray while Republicans gain ground in state and local races.

North Carolina had long been in Republican hands but Obama won it four years ago, partly because its demographics have shifted in the Democrats’ favor. Obama leveraged those changes by increasing voter registration among young people, minorities and newcomers — and getting them to turn out in force on Election Day.

Obama Lays Out Stark 'Choice Between Two Different Paths'

CHARLOTTE — Barack Obama came to the last Democratic National Convention and told America it was time to say yes to a new vision for politics. The Obama who came to the convention Thursday night in Charlotte urged voters to say no — no to going backward, no to the notion that “hope” was naive and no to what he cast as an extreme Republican agenda.

Obama painted a picture of Republican Party eager to make sweeping changes he said would halt the progress of his administration. Again and again, he called on voters to stand with him to continue on the path he’s charted the past four years.

Romney campaign to 'carpet bomb' airwaves after Obama nomination speech

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  Senior Romney-Ryan campaign officials tell Fox News the campaign will launch an enormous media offensive on Friday, the day after President Obama accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term. The push will include ad buys in several states that will cost tens of millions of dollars. 

Aides said more than a dozen new ads, each tailored to different regions and segments of the electorate, will begin airing Friday, aimed at dramatically shifting the dynamics of a contest that Romney-Ryan aides acknowledge, in terms of the hard realities of the electoral map, have until now favored the Obama-Biden ticket. 

“Time is short,” said one campaign aide. “We have $100 million we’ve just raised.  If you look at our burn rate to date and our cash on hand, there’s not much more we can spend on infrastructure. So we’ve got to start spending our general election funds in a big way, because you know what the value of that money is on the day after the election? Zero.” 

Biden vows Obama 'never wavers,' will finish the job

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Vice President Biden on Thursday offered an eyewitness account of President Obama’s steely resolve under pressure to bring the nation back from the brink of collapse.

He acknowledged the country still has significant ground to cover to regain its former prosperity, but vowed Obama would finish the job.

“Folks, I’ve watched him. He never wavers. He steps up. He asks the same thing over and over again: How is this going to work for ordinary families? Will it help them?” Biden said.

Bill Clinton’s Nostalgianomics

You wanted a nostalgia trip? You got a nostalgia trip. Because that’s what Bill Clinton wanted too. His expertly delivered, substantially improvised speech at the Democratic convention played like a 2012 remix of a 90s greatest political hits album: balanced budgets, economic prosperity, job growth, work and welfare.

Clinton played all the characters that made him famous: bleeding-heart bubba, the relatable leader, the clever country-boy, and even the serious — but accessible! — policy wonk. Clinton spent the majority of the speech explaining and adjudicating a slew of economic policy debates. He has always had a keen nose for the political trends of the moment, and here the former POTUS was reborn as fact-checker-in-chief.

That’s not to say he got all of his facts right.