Live-Slogging the Romney New Hampshire Acceptance Speech

Watch it live here. Ann Romney is thanking folks right now, and Willard is about to take the stage.

UPDATE: Mitt looks relieved. “Tonight we made history,” he says. Which, technically, is true, since he’s won Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney is going after Obama, calling him a “failed president.” “Our debt’s too high, and opportunities are too few.” He says Obama is happy to wake up in the morning, “look out across America,” and say “it could be worse.” That’s not American, Mitt says.

UPDATE: Mitt calls it “the worst recovery since the Great Depression,” and now he’s trying to position himself as the hope candidate. He’s mentioned hope at least twice, along with Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.” “The president has run out of ideas. Now he’s running out of excuses.” The crowd is giddy. “Let’s make 2012 the year he runs out of time.” He accuses Obama “and a few desperate Republicans” of “putting the free market on trial.” He’s trying to preempt the Bain Capital charges by cloaking himself in patriotism.

Romney again accuses Obama of trying to turn America into a “European-style welfare state,” saying he looks to the “capitols of Europe” for inspiration, whereas Romney’s people look to the American people for inspiration. A lot of this is from his stump speech; we’ll see if he starts quoting patriotic songs, as he did when he won Iowa. That’s a perennial Romney speech trademark.

(Continued after the jump.)

Romney says Obama is weak on the military, and he will make it so strong nobody will think to question us. “Our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States,” he says. In one paragraph, he’s making the case for bigger military and trying to appeal to small-government teabaggers. That’s pretty ballsy.

He accuses Obama of wanting to make America “the worst of what Europe has become.” This anti-European bent of Romney’s fascinates me. He strikes me as someone who’s spent a fair amount of time in Europe

And he’s out. Well, this speech was way better than his awkward, distracted Iowa speech. And running directly against Obama has proven to be great primary strategy for his team, but I wonder what he’s got in the general; calling Obama a failed president and bashing Europe isn’t going to be enough to win it for him. His barely deigning to swing at his other candidates must infuriate them to no end, and I’m not sure he’ll be able to make Bain Capital into an engine of patriotism in the general election the way he did in this speech, either; that’s a story that’s going to get a lot of focus, one way or another. And now “Sweet Caroline” is playing> Romney is singing along. MITT ROMNEY IS SINGING ALONG TO “SWEET CAROLINE.” I could have gone my whole life without seeing that. Ugh.