Nevada holds its presidential caucuses on Saturday, and Romney came bounding in after winning the Florida primary and making a stop in Minnesota on his trip west.

“The president’s mistakes, some of them are calculated based on a philosophy that’s hard to understand and some, you scratch your head and say, ‘How could he be so misguided and so naive,’” Romney told a crowd of several hundred in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tonight accused President Obama of being naive and of not understanding the American spirit, delivering a sharp speech that included new criticism of the administration’s decision to detail its Afghan troop pullout schedule.


Romney excoriated Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who announced in a speech in Brussels earlier in the day that US and international forces would end their combat role in Afghanistan in 2013 but continue a training and advisory role with Afghan forces through 2014.

“He announced that, he announced that so the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it,” Romney said with incredulity. “Why in the world do you go to the people that you’re fighting with and tell them the day that you’re pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense. His naivete is putting in jeopardy the mission of the United States of America and our commitments to freedom. He is wrong. We need new leadership in Washington.”

That decision was not his only criticism, though.

Romney said the president lacks a basic understanding of American values and the Democrat must be unseated this fall to preserve them.

“This election is about more than just about Barack Obama, of course. In my view, this is an election about the soul of American,” he said. “This is something about the very character of what America will be.”


In another passage, Romney said of the president: “I’m afraid he’s detached from reality. I don’t think he really knows what’s going on in America.”

And in one more passage focused on the rising national debt, he said: “Look at the jeopardy he places our nation in, and our kids, and ourselves. This is not just the next generation. I believe it’s immoral to keep spending what we cannot possibly repay.”

Romney concluded by lauding innovators, pioneers, builders, and others with spirit “in their DNA.”

He said: “We share this spirit. I don’t think President Obama understands that. I don’t think he has the feeling of this American spirit that drives us to be successful and to innovate and to create. And by the way, the success of some does not make the rest of us poorer. The success of some makes us all better off.

“The president seems intent on dividing America, on replacing ambition with envy, on poisoning the very spirit of America by causing class warfare. This is wrong. What is right for America is to be united, to thank providence for the great blessing to be born here, and to recognize the responsibility we have to keep the light of the shining city on the hill bright.”

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.