BALTIMORE - President Obama warned supporters Tuesday that Republicans have boiled down their campaign against him to a single phrase that can fit into a 140-character Twitter message and unfairly blames him for the nation’s ills.
“Because folks are still hurting right now, the other side feels that it’s enough for them to just sit back and say, ‘Things aren’t as good as they should be and it’s Obama’s fault,’ ’’ Obama said during a campaign fund-raising appearance at a private home in Owings Mills, Md.
“You can pretty much put their campaign on a tweet and have some characters to spare,’’ he said.
Obama’s quip neatly summed up his campaign’s concern that Republicans have begun to make headway in their attempt to pin the sluggish economy on his administration, and the urgency with which Team Obama is hoping to turn the corner on nearly two weeks of dismal economic and campaign news.
But the president’s GOP rivals quickly fought back, taking to, where else, Twitter, to mock Obama’s remarks, employing the hashtag #characterstospare.
“Unemployment at 8.2% for a record 40 straight months. #characterstospare,’’ the Republican National Committee wrote, even though the national unemployment rate had dipped to 8.1 percent in April before rising to 8.2 percent last month.
“Where are the jobs? - How many #CharacterstoSpare do I have?’’ tweeted Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
The combative mood underscored the high stakes as Obama set out on a whirlwind fund-raising tour Tuesday, as he sought to remain financially competitive with Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney.
Obama’s six fund-raisers in Baltimore and Philadelphia were expected to net the campaign at least $3.6 million and take his total number of such events for the 2012 cycle to over 160, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a variety of presidential statistics. That’s more than double the pace of President George W. Bush, who had appeared at 79 fund-raisers at this point in his 2004 reelection campaign.
The pace reflects a long-held concern among Obama advisers that Romney, along with a number of independent GOP super PACs, could outraise Democrats. That concern turned into outright worry last week when Romney released fund-raising numbers for May showing that he and other GOP groups had outraised Obama and Democrats for the first time in the cycle.
Romney’s health plan sees ‘consumer market’
ORLANDO - As the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care overhaul, Mitt Romney laid out an alternative on Tuesday that he said would make the health insurance system more like a consumer market.
Addressing supporters, Romney fleshed out a plan he proposed earlier that would apply free-enterprise principles to the nation’s health-care system rather than operate it like a “government-managed utility,’’ letting competition drive down prices and increase quality. He also vowed to divert federal Medicaid dollars and other federal funding to state governments, making them responsible for covering the uninsured. And he promised that his plan would still help cover people with preexisting conditions, one of the more popular components of Obama’s law.
Romney fiercely attacked what he and other Republicans have labeled “Obamacare.’’ The presumptive GOP presidential nominee said that if the Supreme Court does not overturn the law in full, he would work to repeal whatever remains of it on his first day as president by granting a waiver to all 50 states to opt out of the law’s restrictions.
Romney likened the health-care system under the Affordable Care Act to “a big government-managed utility’’ and argued that the law is casting a dark cloud over the nation’s anemic economic recovery.
“It’s not only bad policy and bad for middle-income families and bad for small business, it’s simply unaffordable,’’ Romney said. “And so, the right course for us is to make sure that the next president of the United States repeals Obamacare and replaces Obamacare.’’
The Obama campaign hit back at Romney’s policy view in a statement Tuesday: “This morning, Mitt Romney promised that if he’s elected, insurance companies will be able to discriminate against Americans with preexisting conditions, charge women higher premiums than they charge men for the same coverage, and kick young adults off their parents’ plans when they graduate high school or college. . . . For too long, American families have faced a choice between going bankrupt to afford the care they need or going without that care at all, and Mitt Romney wants to take us back to that time.’’
Romney first laid out a plan to replace the health-care law in a speech in Michigan last spring before he formally launched his campaign. But he avoided detailed discussions of health care during the Republican primaries, partly because the Massachusetts law he championed and signed as governor is so similar to the federal law.
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“Because folks are still hurting right now, the other side feels that it’s enough for them to just sit back and say, ‘Things aren’t as good as they should be and it’s Obama’s fault,’ ’’ Obama said during a campaign fund-raising appearance at a private home in Owings Mills, Md.
“You can pretty much put their campaign on a tweet and have some characters to spare,’’ he said.
Obama’s quip neatly summed up his campaign’s concern that Republicans have begun to make headway in their attempt to pin the sluggish economy on his administration, and the urgency with which Team Obama is hoping to turn the corner on nearly two weeks of dismal economic and campaign news.
But the president’s GOP rivals quickly fought back, taking to, where else, Twitter, to mock Obama’s remarks, employing the hashtag #characterstospare.
“Unemployment at 8.2% for a record 40 straight months. #characterstospare,’’ the Republican National Committee wrote, even though the national unemployment rate had dipped to 8.1 percent in April before rising to 8.2 percent last month.
“Where are the jobs? - How many #CharacterstoSpare do I have?’’ tweeted Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.
The combative mood underscored the high stakes as Obama set out on a whirlwind fund-raising tour Tuesday, as he sought to remain financially competitive with Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney.
Obama’s six fund-raisers in Baltimore and Philadelphia were expected to net the campaign at least $3.6 million and take his total number of such events for the 2012 cycle to over 160, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a variety of presidential statistics. That’s more than double the pace of President George W. Bush, who had appeared at 79 fund-raisers at this point in his 2004 reelection campaign.
The pace reflects a long-held concern among Obama advisers that Romney, along with a number of independent GOP super PACs, could outraise Democrats. That concern turned into outright worry last week when Romney released fund-raising numbers for May showing that he and other GOP groups had outraised Obama and Democrats for the first time in the cycle.
Romney’s health plan sees ‘consumer market’
ORLANDO - As the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care overhaul, Mitt Romney laid out an alternative on Tuesday that he said would make the health insurance system more like a consumer market.
Addressing supporters, Romney fleshed out a plan he proposed earlier that would apply free-enterprise principles to the nation’s health-care system rather than operate it like a “government-managed utility,’’ letting competition drive down prices and increase quality. He also vowed to divert federal Medicaid dollars and other federal funding to state governments, making them responsible for covering the uninsured. And he promised that his plan would still help cover people with preexisting conditions, one of the more popular components of Obama’s law.
Romney fiercely attacked what he and other Republicans have labeled “Obamacare.’’ The presumptive GOP presidential nominee said that if the Supreme Court does not overturn the law in full, he would work to repeal whatever remains of it on his first day as president by granting a waiver to all 50 states to opt out of the law’s restrictions.
Romney likened the health-care system under the Affordable Care Act to “a big government-managed utility’’ and argued that the law is casting a dark cloud over the nation’s anemic economic recovery.
“It’s not only bad policy and bad for middle-income families and bad for small business, it’s simply unaffordable,’’ Romney said. “And so, the right course for us is to make sure that the next president of the United States repeals Obamacare and replaces Obamacare.’’
The Obama campaign hit back at Romney’s policy view in a statement Tuesday: “This morning, Mitt Romney promised that if he’s elected, insurance companies will be able to discriminate against Americans with preexisting conditions, charge women higher premiums than they charge men for the same coverage, and kick young adults off their parents’ plans when they graduate high school or college. . . . For too long, American families have faced a choice between going bankrupt to afford the care they need or going without that care at all, and Mitt Romney wants to take us back to that time.’’
Romney first laid out a plan to replace the health-care law in a speech in Michigan last spring before he formally launched his campaign. But he avoided detailed discussions of health care during the Republican primaries, partly because the Massachusetts law he championed and signed as governor is so similar to the federal law.
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