Confident Romney turns attention to Obama

Reporting from Pensacola, Fla. —  Showing confidence in his rising poll numbers here in Florida, Mitt Romney hammered President Obama for proposing military spending cuts to address the spiraling budget deficit.

Campaigning near the Naval Air Station Pensacola in a state with one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country, Romney got a hand from his onetime foe Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former navy pilot who was awarded his wings in Pensacola and joked to the crowd that he did his “best to help the economy here” – devoting his entire paycheck “to cultural institutions here.”

McCain struck a more serious tone when he criticized the recent budget blueprint released by the Defense Department, which would slash projected military spending by nearly half a trillion dollars. The plan calls for cancelling a number of weapon programs and reducing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, as well as the number of Army combat brigades and Air Force squadrons.

“The president of the United States wants to cut approximately 100,000 men and women out of our military,” McCain said before introducing Romney. “My friends, this is a dangerous world we live in. The cuts that the president of the United States wants to make are unconscionable, unnecessary and frankly would put this nation at greater risk. This president leads from behind. Mitt Romney, like Ronald Reagan, will lead from in front.”

Romney, in turn, chided Obama’s approach toward the nuclear threat of Iran and argued that his support for reductions in military budget spending stemmed from his view that America “is in decline.”

“The foreign policy of ‘pretty please’ is not working terribly well,” Romney told the large crowd that gathered at the Fish House in Pensacola, where supporters fanned out across the wooden decks and balconies above. “As part of that strategy, he is comfortable with reducing the capacity of our military.”

Romney added that since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. has been committed to maintaining a force capable of fighting two wars at once – so that “no one would ever think of testing us in a time of crisis.”

“This president has changed that,” he said. “He is going to reduce our military capability so that we can’t do that anymore and as part of that he’s reducing our troops by 100,000…. This is a doomsday scenario. This is a very dangerous course in my view.”

Romney said he favored the opposite course: adding 100,000 active-duty military personnel.

Jon Voight, a new Romney supporter, touched off the criticism of Obama in his introduction on Saturday. Calling Romney strong and honest, he said the former Massachusetts governor “wants to bring this country back to its exceptional place where we have been for hundreds and hundreds of years until President Obama decided to follow his father’s footsteps and take us to socialism.” The crowd applauded as one man shouted “Amen.”

With his campaign on the upswing after his aggressive performance in Thursday night’s debate, Romney scarcely mentioned Newt Gingrich during his first event Saturday. But he continued to ridicule Gingrich’s attention to the response from recent debate audiences.

“My most fun the other day was going to a debate, wasn’t that fun?” Romney asked the audience. “This last one Speaker Gingrich said he didn’t do so well because the audience was so loud. The one before, he said he didn’t do so well because the audience was too quiet. This like Goldilocks, you know? You’ve got to have it just right.”

“When I debate the president, I’m not going to worry about the audience,” he continued to cheers. “I’m going to make sure that we take down Barack Obama and take back the White House.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com