The top adviser to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney reportedly scrapped the candidate’s entire acceptance speech just eight days before he delivered it, throwing the campaign into chaos.
The last-minute efforts led to a jumbled address with key oversights — including no mention of troops serving overseas, the war in Afghanistan or al Qaeda, according to Politico.com.
The first draft, penned by veteran wordsmith Peter Wehner, included those topics.
But Romney’s adviser Stuart Stevens nixed the speech for unknown reasons, Politico said.
Meanwhile, Republican activists have grown frustrated with Romney’s performance on the trail and poll numbers against President Obama, given the nation’s sluggish economy and conservative enthusiasm to beat the Democrat.
“He ought to be killing Obama, and he’s clearly not doing that,” said R.J. Robinson, 32, one of the thousands attending the annual Values Voters Summit in Washington this weekend. “He should be doing better.”
The sentiments were echoed in interviews with more than a dozen GOP activists and conservative leaders who attended the annual gathering focused on social and cultural issues and sponsored by the Family Research Council.
The summit was filled with rhetoric meant to fire up the party’s base voters. Romney needs them to turn out in force in November and, between now and then, to convince others to do the same through extensive get-out-the-vote grass-roots canvassing in swing-voting states.
To energize them, dozens of high-profile conservatives, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, used their speeches to paint the 2012 race as a transformational moment in the country’s history.