McCain ready, Obama isn't, Romney asserts

"I'm not running for anything now," he told about three dozen reporters over an hourlong meeting in the Brown Palace Hotel.

Asked about his private sector work experience, where Democrats are accusing Romney of being a "job killing machine," Romney defended his time at Bain Investments and Bain Capital as working with good colleagues who tried to save more than 100 firms. "We succeeded, we failed." But always, in the Winter Olympics and in one term of Massachusetts governor (he left in January 2007 to run for president), Romney said he sought good solutions for good employees to build a better organization.

Other Romney high points:

• U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Obama's pick for vice president, "has spent 30 years in foreign policy, but has been wrong for 30 years."

Biden thought Ronald Reagan's arms buildup build-up against the Soviet Union would lead to that nation becoming emboldened and strong. But he was wrong. Also, Romney said Biden was wrong on the troop surge in Iraq, as well as dividing Iraq into three countries.

Perhaps referring to the GOP ads showing an early debate where Biden said Obama was not ready for the presidency and the presidency was no place for on-the-job training, Romney said no one will ever find in the earlier Republican debates that McCain is not ready to be president.

In other words, Obama has not strengthened his foreign policy credentials by picking Biden.

• Obama is wrong on Western issues, especially energy development, where he won't consider nuclear energy and off-shore oil drilling.

• Obama is such a flip-flopper on issues "that we don't know where he stands."

• While some still say that McCain doesn't personally like Romney, Romney said he spent 2 1/2 days at McCain's New Mexico home, and talked with him and his son into the night.

"We get along well, I suggest we are friends. I think he'd say the same thing." Still, the two men have never talked personally talked about the vice presidency.

• While he's not seeking the vice presidency, he doesn't believe being a Mormon harms his chances of helping McCain get elected. "One's religion, race, ethnicity, doesn't play a role" in this presidential election, Romney said.

• Sen. Hillary Clinton "will say tonight" in her convention speech "exactly what the Obama camp expect and hope she will say." But Romney says there are still a lot of Clinton supporters who are not be satisfied that Obama didn't seriously consider her for vice president and may well take a good look at McCain.

Romney said he will give an address in next week's Republican National Convention in St. Paul on the economy and how Obama's ideas won't work and John McCain's will. (That is, unless he is tapped to be vice president, and would then give a very different talk.)

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; lee@desnews.com