AP News in Brief
Obama launches new offensive against Romney, linking personal taxes to remarks about untaxed
• CHICAGO (AP) -- President Barack Obama's campaign is launching a new offensive Monday against Republican Mitt Romney, blasting the GOP nominee for criticizing Americans who don't pay income taxes without having "come clean" about his own.
• The campaign started the new push with a television advertisement, its first spot using Romney's comments that 47 percent of voters pay no income tax, and believe they are victims and entitled to government assistance. The ad was to begin airing in Ohio -- a crucial swing state where Romney was campaigning this week -- but was also expected to be part of the campaign's final push elsewhere between now and Election Day.
• "Maybe instead of attacking others on taxes, he should come clean on his," the ad's narrator says of Romney.
• The 30-second spot signaled that Obama would keep making Romney's taxes a campaign issue. The Republican hopeful has released only two years of tax information about his personal fortune and finances.
• Six weeks out from the election, Obama holds a slim lead over Romney in most battleground states. The Republican is seeking to right his campaign following a rough stretch that included the release of his secretly recorded remarks about the 47 percent and criticism that he's not campaigning hard enough for the White House.
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Who needs Election Day? Americans already voting and a third likely to lock in before Nov. 6
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Now it's for real. Every time Mitt Romney or Barack Obama hits a rhetorical high note or commits another blunder, millions of voters watching and listening out there have the power to sit down at home, fill out a ballot, drop it in the mail and be done with the 2012 presidential race.
• At least a third of American voters probably will lock in their choices before Election Day arrives on Nov. 6.
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