Obama congratulates Romney on GOP nod
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama congratulated Mitt Romney Wednesday on securing the Republican presidential nomination, a gesture coupled with a new line of attack on the GOP challenger that portrays his economic record while Massachusetts governor as a failure.
Romney's campaign, meanwhile, was bringing attention to failed stimulus projects under Obama and federal money given to green energy companies like Solyndra, a solar firm that received hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, only to go bankrupt.
Obama called Romney and told him "he looked forward to an important and healthy debate about America's future," campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said. Romney's campaign said the call was "brief and cordial." Both men wished each other's families well during the upcoming race.
Romney's primary win Tuesday in Texas pushed him past the 1,144-delegate threshold he needed to claim the nomination.
Obama took the formal step of congratulating his opponent, even as his team looked to shift to the Massachusetts story. In a five-page memo from senior adviser David Axelrod, the Obama camp cast Romney as a poor steward of the Massachusetts economy as governor in 2003-2007.
"When it comes to Mitt Romney and his economic philosophy, the facts are clear -- it didn't work then, and it won't work now," Axelrod wrote.
The competing attack lines came as Romney pivoted from a long primary slog to the Republican nomination and a new summertime window to sway voters who have not yet fully tuned in to the campaign. He hopes to present himself as a worthy replacement for Obama who can help revitalize the economy, the most important issue for voters.
The country is "just beginning a general election, we've gone through a primary . . . not a lot of people focus time on the characteristics of a new candidate like myself, and people will get to know me better. My guess is they're going to get to know more about me than they'd like to by the time we're finished," Romney said in a taped Fox News interview aired yesterday.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
