“I am not a politician,” claimed Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney during his visit to Birmingham earlier today.

He explained that, at heart,  he is really a “conservative businessman” in his speech that focused on family values and his policies, which he says will encourage business.

In case you missed it, Mitt Romney is not really a politician.

The candidate spoke to a crowd of approximately 1500 people this afternoon at Thompson Tractor, a crowd that consisted of company employees, families and local businessmen.

Romney seemed to try to present himself as a humorous, casual politician who wore jeans and referred to Alabama’s citizens as hardworking and patriotic people.

Romney did not address his Republican opponents once, but followed a familiar pattern and chose to focus on criticizing President Barack Obama. “President Obama has made almost all mistakes,” Romney said.

The Republican candidate criticized a new documentary that portrays Obama positively, calling it an “infomercial” and poking fun at the producer because he claimed not being able to find anything bad to say about Obama in the film.

“[The producer] needs to make a few calls and see people are not so much better because of Barack Obama,” Romney said. “He needs to call one of the 24 million Americans who are unemployed and see how much better off they are.”

The candidate’s remarks come after reports in the last week that 227,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in February.

He talked briefly about immigration – an important issue in Alabama, due to the recent passage here of the tough state immigration law, HB56 – saying that “pioneers and immigrants don’t make us poorer, they make us better off.”

Other major topics of his speech were the military, the budget and job creation. Among his campaign promises, Romney guaranteed that, if elected president, “we’re finally gonna have a balanced budget.”

Romney promised to cut corporate taxes by 20 percent and get more jobs in this country, and to get rid of Obama Care day one of his presidency.

The candidate did not say if he will or will not join Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum on the Republican debate this coming Monday, March 12, at the Alabama Theatre.

Helena Corzan is a contributor to Second Front and a Weld Local correspondent. Send your feedback to editor@weldbham.