Obama: Romney hasn't 'gotten around a lot'

MIAMI -- President Barack Obama said rival Mitt Romney hasn't "gotten around a lot" if he believes 47 percent of Americans consider themselves victims and entitled to government help.

Addressing a large Latino television audience Thursday, Obama said his "biggest failure" was an inability to win an overhaul of the immigration system. He also said he had come to the conclusion that "you can't change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside."

Romney seized on the remarks Thursday to say that Obama had surrendered in the face of a broken Washington and major challenges. "His slogan was 'Yes, we can.' His slogan now is 'No, I can't.' This is time for a new president."

Obama was reacting to remarks by Romney, secretly taped, in which the Republican declared that the 47 percent of voters who support Obama represent Americans who don't pay income taxes and "who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them."

Obama said Americans pay payroll, gas, state and sales taxes. He noted that those who pay no federal income taxes include workers who don't make enough money to qualify, older Americans and students.

"When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is maybe you haven't gotten around a lot," Obama said during an interview with Spanish language channel Univision.

Romney spoke Wednesday at the Univision forum, where he said his campaign was about "the 100 percent in America."

Obama, who ran on a message of changing the partisan tone in Washington, said he had come to the conclusion that he had to reach beyond Washington to put pressure on lawmakers.

"So something that I'd really like to concentrate on in my second term is being in a much more constant conversation with the American people so that they can put pressure on Congress to help move some of these issues forward," he said.

Romney countered, "I can change Washington. I will change Washington. We'll get the job done from the inside -- Republicans and Democrats will come together. He can't do it."

The Romney campaign, meanwhile, lost its national co-chairman, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who resigned to lobby for Wall Street. The Financial Services Roundtable announced Thursday that Pawlenty will become its president and chief executive Nov. 1.