Romney begins pivot to take on Obama

The 2012 U.S. presidential general election has begun. It won't be pretty.

Rick Santorum's exit from the Republican race unofficially kicked off the contest between the two virtually certain nominees, Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.

Santorum's departure on Tuesday removed the last meaningful bump from Romney's path to his party's nomination. Romney and Obama wasted no time in portraying the voters' choice in dire, sometimes starkly personal terms.

Romney, speaking Wednesday in Connecticut, made no mention of his remaining Republican rivals, instead taking aim at Obama directly. 

He accused the president, a Democrat, of hurting Americans, especially women, with bad policies that have hindered the country's economic recovery.

"What I’m going to have to do every day is bring him back to his record," Romney, a former Massachusetts governor making his second presidential bid, said of Obama.

"Let’s hammer home day after day what’s gone wrong with his policies, and that those policies are wrong for the American people."

With Obama saddled with a still-ailing economy and a divisive health-care law, and Romney riding a wave of blistering TV ads, the fall election is unlikely to dwell on "hope," "change" and other uplifting themes from four years ago. Much of the nation's ire then was aimed at departing president George W. Bush, and Obama had no extensive record to defend.

'His campaign is all about finding Americans to blame and attack, and find someone to tax more, someone who isn't giving, isn't paying their fair share.' —Mitt Romney on Barack Obama

The landscape is much different now. Americans face nearly seven months of hard-hitting jabs and counterpunches between the two parties' standard-bearers.

Romney also portrayed Obama as a weak leader who apologizes for America's greatness and prefers European-style socialism over robust free enterprise. Obama's allies call such claims nonsense. 

"The right course for America is not to divide America," Romney said Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

"That's what he's doing," he said of Obama. "His campaign is all about finding Americans to blame and attack, and find someone to tax more, someone who isn't giving, isn't paying their fair share."

Obama says choice as stark as 1964

Meanwhile, Obama, campaigning in Florida, said the choice this fall will be as stark as in the 1964 contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, which resulted in one of the biggest Democratic landslides ever. That election included dramatic and controversial moments, such as Goldwater's defence of "extremism in the defence of liberty" and a devastating TV ad suggesting a Goldwater presidency would lead to nuclear war.

Obama didn't mention Romney by name. His top aides have shown less restraint, however.

[IMAGEGALLERY galleryid=2049 size=small]

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement after Santorum's withdrawal: "It's no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to grind down his opponents under an avalanche of negative ads. But neither he nor his special interest allies will be able to buy the presidency with their negative attacks. The more the American people see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him."

Other Obama campaign officials have mocked Romney's wealth and called him out of touch with average Americans.

Romney and his allies, including a potent super PAC, have proved their ability to raise millions of dollars to air brutally effective attack ads, which crippled Santorum and Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary contests. Obama will raise many millions, too, and few doubt that he will hit Romney hard.

On Tuesday, Romney made clear that he will go after Obama's character as well as his record. In speeches in Mendenhall and Wilmington, Delaware, Romney said Obama isn't merely inept at economic policy, he actively dislikes business.

Obama "is clearly trying to hide from us what he intends to do," Romney said in Wilmington. "He's going to hide. And it's my job to seek."

Romney made similar remarks last month. Now, with Santorum off the stage and Gingrich and Ron Paul hardly a factor, there are no intra-party distractions to dilute such comments. Romney and Obama are fully engaged, one-on-one, at a much earlier stage than in 2008, when Obama had to parry Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton throughout the summer before fully turning to Republican John McCain.

Even then, Bush's unpopularity helped fuel Obama's campaign and deflected some of the anti-Republican sentiment away from the actual nominee.

This time, the incumbent president is on the ballot, with unemployment above eight per cent. The Tea Party, which didn't exist in 2008, is a potent and unpredictable force.

And Romney suddenly is free of meaningful primary worries. That leaves him able to focus the full force of his fundraising and campaigning skills against Obama.