Obama rejects Romney's 'Twitter' message
2012-06-13 10:00
Owings Mills - A sarcastic US President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the theme of his rival Mitt Romney's presidential campaign could fit on a tweet with letters to spare - "it's Obama's fault".
Obama told supporters in Maryland that his policies at a time of economic misery had been able to "right the ship a little bit" but that he needed a second term to "lock in" progress and growth.
"The good news is, the American people generally agree with our vision," Obama said.
"If you just put in front of them issue after issue and you present the Democratic approach and the Republican approach, we win.
"The challenge is because folks are still hurting right now, the other side feels that it's enough for them to just sit back and say, 'things aren't as good as they should be and it's Obama's fault'."
"And, you can pretty much put their campaign on... a tweet and have some characters to spare."
Cranking up the pace
Brendan Buck, a spokesperson for Republican House Speaker John Boehner, quickly hit back at Obama's remark - on Twitter.
"Methinks the President's silly attack on GOP message shows frustration that he doesn't have a consistent message at all," Buck wrote.
Obama on Tuesday held six events in Maryland and Philadelphia as he cranks up the pace of his fundraising after being well outpaced by Romney, who raised $76m in May compared to his own haul of $60m-plus.
Aides said Obama's intent is to draw sharp distinctions between his approach and that of Romney, who he believes would weight the economy towards the richest Americans and hurt the middle classes.
"You'll never see a sharper contrast," between rival protagonists in an election, he argued, claiming Romney would run the United States deeper into debt and cut spending on science, education and infrastructure.
Obama, trying to bounce back after a wobbly week, which saw grim data showing unemployment edged up to 8.2% and his misstep when he said the private sector was doing "fine", took on Romney directly in his second event.
Case against 2nd term
"He should be proud of the personal success he achieved as the head of a large financial firm," Obama said.
"But I think he has drawn the wrong lessons from these experiences. He seems to believe that if CEOs and wealthy investors like him are doing well, the rest of us automatically do well."
Republicans however succinctly laid out the case against the president's appeal for a second White House term.
"The top line facts are well known to everybody, unemployment is at 8.2%, there are 23-ish million Americans unemployed or underemployed," said Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Policy Studies at American Enterprise Institute on a Republican Party conference call.
"About 50% of recent graduates can't find a job or have had to accept a job that's far below what they are qualified for.
"New business start-ups are at a 30-year low and so on."
