Two African American conservatives who were on hand for Mitt Romney’s NAACP speech said they were in the room at the invitation of Team Romney. An NAACP official has said the cheers during Romney’s speech came from supporters Romney brought in, while Democrats have said the boos were orchestrated by the Romney campaign.
MSNBC’s Jillian Rayfield reports that at least two of the Romney supporters in the NAACP crowd were there at the behest of the Romney campaign:
“I was invited by Governor Romney,” Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll of Florida, a Republican, told Lean Forward in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.
Asked who paid Carroll’s way, her office referred Lean Forward to the Romney campaign’s press office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Niger Innis, a conservative activist, told Lean Forward Thursday that he was encouraged to attend the Houston speech by friends in the NAACP, as well as “some folks that were aligned with the Romney campaign,” declining to elaborate. Innis said he paid his own way.
Innis added that he wasn’t surprised that Team Romney wanted some friendly faces in the crowd.
“Any political campaign,” Innis said, “be it Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or the Green Party, if they’re coming to an event, and it’s an event that has challenges, they’re going to want to surround themselves with allies. It’s a no-brainer.”
