STARKVILLE, Miss. — Mitt Romney sounded out themes for a potential third presidential run, lamented the nature of the political process and offered a dose of barely veiled self-criticism in a visit Wednesday to this college town.
Mr. Romney, speaking to students at Mississippi State University, discussed some of the shortcomings of his 2012 campaign and the lessons he learned from his loss to President Obama.
He made clear that he would address head-on voters’ uneasiness concerning his wealth, an issue Mr. Obama hammered him on. “As you’ve no doubt heard, I’m already rich,” Mr. Romney joked.
In a question-and-answer session after the speech, Mr. Romney initially said he would not explicitly discuss what went wrong in the last race. But then he spoke at length, couching a self-assessment in how the Republican Party should act in the next campaign.
Mr. Romney, repeatedly criticized by his party during the presidential campaign for focusing on entrepreneurs rather than working-class Americans, said Republicans must better explain their stance on economic issues. “The reason I’m talking about the economy and small business is because I want there to be more jobs,” he said.
Having lost in part because of his needy performance among minorities and his tack to the right during the primaries, Mr. Romney added that Republicans must make more direct personal appeals to nonwhite voters.
“We tend to go to the audiences that vote in Republican primaries and tend therefore not to be as involved in minority communities as we need to be to win the general election,” he said. “So we’ve got to stop thinking so much about the primary and start thinking more about making sure we have people to support us in the general election.”
Mr. Romney seemed just as fixated on his political deficiencies when he stopped earlier in the day at a popular barbecue restaurant, the Little Dooey, to share a meal with Mississippi State’s football coach, Dan Mullen.
Mr. Romney, who can be prone to gaffes, expressed a bit of envy that coaches rose or fell based almost entirely on their records.
“It would be nice if people who run for office, that their leadership experience, what they’ve accomplished in life, would be a bigger part of what people are focused on, but it’s not,” he said. “Mostly, it’s what you say — and what you do is a lot more important than just what you say.”
“You could be the sweetest-talking person in the world,” he told Mr. Mullen, “but unless you got a record, you’re in trouble.”
Even as he grumbled about the way politics is played, Mr. Romney broke what he said was “an unwritten rule” of the business by eating with cameras present.
Asked if this represented a “new Romney,” Mr. Romney chewed on his pulled-pork sandwich topped with coleslaw before looking up. “I’m going to eat whether the cameras are here or not,” he said.
In his remarks at Mississippi State, Mr. Romney took aim at Mr. Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a “timid” foreign policy in the face of growing global threats.
“Doesn’t the president understand that some of what we are seeing in the world is in part the result of his timid foreign policy, of walking away from his red line in Syria, of paring back our military budget and of insulting friends like Israel and Poland?” Mr. Romney said.
Mr. Romney offered a pointed criticism of Mrs. Clinton, who is preparing for a likely presidential campaign.
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cluelessly pressed a reset button for Russia, which smiled and then invaded Ukraine, a sovereign nation,” Mr. Romney said. “The Middle East and much of North Africa is in chaos. China grows more assertive and builds a navy that will be larger than ours in five years. We shrink our nuclear capabilities as Russia upgrades theirs.”
He also questioned a statement Mrs. Clinton made last year suggesting that businesses do not create jobs. “How can Secretary Clinton provide opportunity for all if she doesn’t know where the jobs come from in the first place?” he asked.
Mr. Romney has faced criticism from some powerful Republicans since expressing his renewed presidential interest, with some gently saying his time has passed and others speaking more harshly about his ambition, vanity and lack of a compelling argument for why he should run.
He has sought to rebut those critics in recent weeks, giving speeches in which he raised concerns about income inequality and poverty and, in discussing his faith and faults, indicated he would run a different campaign in 2016. Mr. Romney ignored questions here about when he would decide on another bid, but the moves of his would-be Republican rivals are putting pressure on him to decide.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, each of whom would compete with Mr. Romney for the support of center-right donors and voters, have moved to create political operations and are actively courting potential supporters and financial backers.
