US Presidential race sharpens as it narrows

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is right where he expected to be: taking on Republican Mitt Romney before the November election and targeting him as an indecisive protector of the rich.

For Romney, now his party’s apparent nominee, it’s time to excite his party’s staunchest conservatives without alienating independent voters he’ll need in the fall.

The campaign for the White House took on a decidedly different feel on Wednesday, a two-man race for the first time.

Even as Republican challenger Rick Santorum’s withdrawal, the day before, launched the general election in earnest, the contours of the Obama-Romney race were already clear. Now everything gets louder and faster.

Both sides will pound voters with a ferocious debate over who has the best vision for economic security and for giving Americans a shot at better lives.

“The more the American people see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him and the less they trust him,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said. The Obama campaign released a video Wednesday with some of Romney’s most divisive or awkward moments during campaigning, titled “Mitt Romney: Memories to last a lifetime.”

Romney is attacking Obama as an economic failure who had his shot, and Obama is depicting Romney as one who would gut middle-class America.

Romney predicts Republicans will naturally rally against Obama, despite the skepticism from the Republicans’ conservative base, which preferred Santorum.

“You will see our party more united than it’s been in a long, long time,” Romney told Fox News on Wednesday. He said Americans’ shared distress about the economy will bring other voters to his side.

Polling suggests the president begins the one-on-one contest with a slight advantage.

But Obama’s ratings on handling the economy remain in negative territory. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week said 47 percent say they trust Romney over Obama to handle the economy, compared with 43 percent who favor the president.

Obama’s campaign has a sizeable cash advantage over Romney’s, with more than $84 million in the bank at the end of February, Federal Election Commission records show. Romney’s campaign had about $7.2 million.

But Romney and his allies have proved their ability to raise millions of dollars to air brutally effective attack ads, which crippled Santorum in primary contests.

Obama campaign officials have mocked Romney’s wealth and called him out of touch with average Americans.

Fox News asked Romney how he would respond.

“The campaign started yesterday, the general election campaign,” Romney said. “It’s a little early in the process.”