EUCLID, Ohio – Mitt Romney stood on a factory floor here Monday as a woman asked him what he would do as president to “restore our Constitution in this country.” She asserted that President Obama was operating outside the construction of the nation’s founding document and that “he should be tried for treason.”
Judging by the applause, many in the crowd of about 500 people at a town hall meeting seemed to agree.
Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, did not admonish the woman for suggesting that Obama be tried for treason. He did not refer to the woman’s comment at all. Instead, he repeated his talking points about the Constitution and his pledge to repeal Obama’s health-care overhaul.
“I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired,” Romney said. “I believe the same thing about the Declaration of Independence.”
After his town hall meeting finished, reporters from The Washington Post and the New York Times asked Romney as he shook hands at the ropeline whether he agreed with the woman’s statement.
“No, no,” Romney said, shaking his head. “No, of course not.”
Later, Romney told CNN: “I don’t correct all of the questions that get asked of me. Obviously I don’t agree that he should be tried.”
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith accused Romney of having “failed” to stand up to “hateful” rhetoric.
“Time after time in this campaign, Mitt Romney has had the opportunity to show that he has the fortitude to stand up to hateful and over-the-line rhetoric, and time after time, he has failed to do so,” Smith said in a statement. “If this is the ‘leadership’ he has shown on the campaign trail, what can the American people expect of him as commander-in-chief?”
