Mitt Romney shelled out plenty of criticism against Barack Obama and his policies last night in a speech to the Young America’s Foundation. His remarks mostly focused on Obama’s foreign policy, but he always mentioned how the president’s domestic and economic failures are hurting our nation’s stance in the world.

Romney’s speech, which took place near the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara California, was approximately 45 minutes, consisting of 22 minutes of his prepared remarks, and 23 minutes of questions and answers. Both the substance and the setting of the speech, plus the mention of his new book to be released in March, send strong signals that he has every intention to run for president again in 2012. The name of his book of course is a less than veiled jab at Obama’s foreign policy stance: No Apology: A Case for American Greatness. With Romney’s speech on Friday he continues to beat the foreign policy drum as he has done in several recent meetings and speeches, perhaps in effort to win over the DefCons in the 2012 election interim.

Below is Romney’s full speech. Some personal thoughts I had regarding it are that he speaks very fluidly and without a teleprompter (very refreshing when in contrast to Mr. Chop Talk), but at times he speaks a little too quickly. He did speak from prepared notes, but not during the Q & A, obviously.

Overview/Highlight Points:

• Our conservative message will connect with young voters if it is presented to them clearly.
• Romney had hoped that Obama would govern from the center as he had campaigned, but he has moved sharply to the left to reflect more of how he actually believes.
• Obama has taken a dramatic departure from the U.S. foreign policy that has existed for last 60 years. His policy has taken a step back from America’s values, in order to become a neutral player. In effort to be neutral he has stiff-armed our friends and drawn closer to our enemies.
• Romney mentions Obama’s mistakes with Honduras, Iran, Czech Republic and Poland, Columbia, Israel and Afghanistan.
• It is inexplicable and incomprehensible that Obama has not had enough time on his calendar to meet regularly with his Generals, but at the same time has done at least 30 campaign events this year.
• Obama has been in office 10 months and has no strategy to protect our soldiers. What has he been doing? (My answer: golf, basketball, huge parties on the White House lawn, dates in Paris. Oh, and still doing campaign events endlessly.)
• EVERY policy step that Obama has taken has made America weaker.
• Stimulus failed because it focused on growing government instead of growing the private sector.
• Deficit spending is not just bad economics, it is morally wrong to place the burden on the next generation.
• In regards to health care, Romney opines that “Obama is not going to get what he wants thanks to the thousands of tea party participants fighting for the things we believe in. Congratulations to them.”
• Having a strong military is fully dependent on having a strong economy.
• The people of America are what are going to change this country and change the leadership in Washington and continue to elect more conservatives.

Q & A: I’ll write the questions, you watch the video for the answer. I’ve paraphrased some of the lengthy questions.

• 22:20 What do you want to do to promote the conservative movement? (In this answer he mentions his book and jokes that he will be selling millions of copies. As an afterthought he mentions that all the proceeds will go to charity.)
• 27:00 What is the difference between Obama’s healthcare plan and what was enacted in Massachusetts?
• 30:00 Obama is pulling back from America’s role in the world. What are the long-term implications of that and how can we get back to greatness?
• 33:30 What are the steps we can take to move towards a more limited government?
• 38:50 How does illegal immigration affect the strength of our nation and affect our national security and domestic policy?

Not mentioned anywhere above is the humor that was infused into his speech, as well as the few personal stories. There were about 5 or 6 good jokes. Some I had heard previously, but they were still very apt.

~Nate Gunderson