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(Continued from page 52)
Obama escalates election fight as he opens his campaign with speeches in Ohio, Virginia
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- In campaign mode for months, President Barack Obama is making his quest for a second term official with rallies in Ohio and Virginia while casting Republican rival Mitt Romney as a flip-flopping protector of the rich.
• The events Saturday at two universities, Ohio State and Virginia Commonwealth, were billed as the official kickoff of Obama's re-election bid, even though he's been solidly engaged in his campaign and filed the necessary paperwork to seek re-election over a year ago.
• During the stops, the president will work to convince voters that his policies have put the nation's economy on more solid footing despite fresh evidence that the job market remains weak. He also is expected to try to define Romney as a candidate peddling old policies for both the economy and national security that are proven failures.
• Obama has already headlined dozens of high-dollar fundraisers around the country as his campaign seeks to build a solid money advantage over Romney. And in his official White House travels, often to battleground states, the president has been pitching policy positions that fit neatly into the campaign's central theme of economic fairness, from a millionaires' tax to freezing student loan interest rates.
• But official campaign rallies are likely to free Obama up to take more direct aim at his GOP challenger. Until now, Obama has used Romney's name sparingly, often choosing instead to cloak his criticisms of Romney in attacks against generic Republicans.
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General balancing act: Mitt Romney tilts right as battle for middle begins
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- He will need independents in November, but Mitt Romney isn't abandoning his "severely conservative" record.
• Instead, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has launched an aggressive campaign against President Barack Obama that straddles two sometimes-conflicting political ideologies. On some days, he is both a social conservative and social moderate, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and promoter of political compromise. It's a delicate balancing act in a general election effort that's just weeks old but (Continued on page 54)
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