The election campaigns of President
Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney shifted into
general election gear on Wednesday, after Romney's main GOP rival
Rick Santorum dropped out of the race a day before.
Talking with Fox News, Romney said Wednesday that "the campaign
started yesterday, the general election campaign." He said the long
primary battle was borne out of the fact that "there's a large
number of people in the Republican party who are extraordinary
leaders, including some of those who have run in this last contest
with me, and so we'll go through that list and decide who could
potentially become a president if that were necessary."
After Santorum's exit, Romney has removed the biggest hurdle in
his quest to become the Republican nominee, and the Obama camp
wasted no time in unleashing attacks against him.
Obama's re-election campaign released a two-minute Web video
depicting some of Romney's most conservative statements from the
campaign trail, which are expected to alienate liberal-leaning
voters, and make Romney's possible return to political middle ground
perilous.
"Expect us to keep holding Romney accountable for the positions
he committed to during the primary. There will be no Etch-a-Sketch
opportunities this year," said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.
The video included some of most conservative and controversial
statements made by Romney during the long primary battle in which he
tried to win over conservative voters. They included " Corporations
are people," "I like to be able to fire people who provide services
to me," "Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that." It
also emphasized on Romney's statement that he was a "severely
conservative Republican governor" during his time in Massachusetts
governor's seat.
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