Mitt Romney got booed at the NAACP convention today when he said he’d eliminate Obamacare. So where did he go afterward to spin it? Where else but Fox News? But it wasn’t all sweetness and light as host Neil Cavuto followed in the footsteps of Laura Ingraham and other Fox Newsies in giving Romney’s campaign some unsolicited suggestions.

But first, Cavuto painted Romney as brave for having spoken at the NAACP convention in the first place. Cavuto said admiringly, “Imagine talking to a group where you know 9 out of 10 in the audience don’t much like you or at least strongly prefer your opponent.” Cavuto said the speech went “surprisingly well” until Romney started “ripping the President’s health care law.” He played a clip of Romney getting booed.

Romney told Cavuto, “We expected that of course but, you know, I’m going to give the same message to the NAACP that I give across the country which is that ObamaCare is killing jobs and if jobs is the priority,  then we’re gonna have to replace ObamaCare with something that actually holds down health care costs as opposed to causing more spending for the government and more spending for American families.”

It just goes to show how tone deaf Romney is – by thinking that treating the NAACP gathering as if they’re the same as the other audiences at Romney speeches. Instead of reaching out to them by acknowledging their differences, extending an invitation to check him out and look for common ground, he whomped them over the head with a flat-out attack on the signature legislation of the first African American president. Dumb move. It’s no wonder they’re having palpitations in Foxville.

Cavuto asked if Romney expected to “chip away” at Obama’s hold on 96% of the African American vote.

“I do, actually,” Romney said. He claimed that he spoke with “a number of African American leaders” after the speech and was told, “A lot of folks don’t want to say they’re not going to be voting for Barack Obama but they’re disappointed in his lack of policies to improve our schools, disappointed in urban policy, disappointed in the economy. 14.4% rate of unemployment among African Americans today. The president has not been able to get the job done and people want to see someone who can get this economy going. So I expect to get African American votes and, by the way, at the end of my speech, having a standing ovation was generous and hospitable on the part of the audience. And I believe that while we disagree on some issues like ObamaCare, on a lot of issues, people see eye to eye. They want somebody who can get the economy going again.”

Cavuto then did his part to help Romney’s race relations along by highlighting that when Romney’s father was governor of Michigan, he put civil rights “not only in the Constitution of the State but pushed hard to fight housing discrimination when he became a cabinet secretary for Richard Nixon.”

Then, Cavuto made some gentle but unmistakable prods. He brought up “the big battle” over the release (or lack thereof) of Romney’s tax returns. Cavuto questioned whether Romney might want to release them just to “quiet critics down.”

Short answer: No. Romney claimed he has released “the same information level” as John Kerry and John McCain and that the Democrats are “always gonna be after me for one thing or another." And as proof that Romney didn’t even want to discuss it any more, he switched the subject to attacking President Obama for a lack of “transparency” over the Fast and Furious scandal.

Cavuto’s prods got a little sharper. “A lot of your staunchest defenders, Governor, say you’re not responding aggressively enough, that you’re not espousing the virtues of private capital, that it’s not at risk like public tax money… Are you waiting for the fall or are you just feeling that these arguments aren’t worthy of a counter?”

Romney said “of course” he responds to attacks but, he added, there’s a maxim that “if you’re responding, you’re losing.” Then he said a “better course” is to “respond to the attacks as being completely off base.” Huh?

Romney continued by saying he gives a speech every day about “the failure of the president’s policies to reignite this economy.” He contended that people are tired of attacks and people want to hear about the issues they care about. He said Obama wants to make the campaign “about attacking wealth” whereas he wants to make it about “helping the middle class.”

OK, Mr. Romney, if you think the middle class is going to feel helped by repealing ObamaCare, going jet skiing, giving tax cuts to millionaires and oh, yeah, putting the family dog on the roof of the car – well, you might want to think again. But I digress.

As the segment began to wind down, Cavuto threw Romney a softball by quoting President Obama saying he doesn’t consider Hugo Chavez a “serious” threat to national security. Romney seized the opportunity to call Obama “out of touch” and more. So much for people being tired of attacks.

But I’m sure Romney, Cavuto and the Fox News producers all thought that by ending the segment with an attack on Obama, it ended on a high note.