Romney: Obama 'Naive' to Think Chavez is No Threat

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama is "simply naive" if he thinks Venezuela's leader does not pose a threat to the United States.

Romney's comments follow Obama's interview this week with a Miami television station in which he was asked to assess the relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran.

"We're always concerned about Iran engaging in destabilizing activity around the globe," Obama told Miami TV station WJAN. "But overall my sense is that what Mr. Chavez has done over the past several years has not had a serious national security impact on us."

Romney, seeking an edge both on national security and with Hispanic voters, said Obama's assertion was "misguided and misdirected."

"The idea that this nation, this president, doesn't pose a national security threat is simply naive and an extraordinary admission on the part of this president to be completely out of touch with what is happening in Latin America," Romney said of Chavez in an interview Wednesday with Fox News.

Obama said the U.S. remains "vigilant" about Venezuela. But he said his main concern was making sure "the Venezuelan people have a voice in their affairs and that you end up ultimately having fair and free elections, which we don't always see."

Chavez, who has been battling cancer, has close ties with Iran and has hosted Iranian leaders in Venezuela. He is seeking re-election and says he is cancer-free.

Chavez is roundly hated by many Venezuelans living in the U.S because of his crackdown on private enterprise, free speech and political opposition. The number of Venezuelans, many from the country's middle and upper class, who now call the U.S. home has doubled in the past decade to 238,000, according to U.S. Census figures.

More than half of them live in Florida, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 presidential election, and have a strong voice there despite making up less than 1 percent of Hispanics nationwide.

Any perception that Obama is failing to take Chavez seriously also could energize Florida's more conservative and politically powerful Cuban-Americans. Many of them also disdain Chavez because of his close ties to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his financial support for the struggling Cuban government.