Obama attacks Romney’s economic record in Mass.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama on Wednesday congratulated Mitt Romney 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 governor of Massachusetts as a failure.
The president called Romney and told him “he looked forward to an important and healthy debate about America’s future,” Obama 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 in Texas on Tuesday 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 under Romney. In a five-page memorandum from senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod, the Obama camp cast Romney as poor steward of the Massachusetts economy during his 2003-2007 tenure as governor.
“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.
Romney’s campaign, meanwhile, was bringing attention to failed stimulus projects under Obama and federal money given to green energy companies such as Solyndra, a solar firm that received hundreds of millions of dollars from the government only to go bankrupt.