It's game on between Obama and Romney
Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama and his certain Republican opponent in November, Mitt Romney, shifted to full general election mode Wednesday with messages intended to rally their bases and portray each other as threats to future progress.
The day after Rick Santorum suspended his bid for the GOP nomination, clearing the way for Romney, the former Massachusetts governor planned events focusing on small businesses as well as a conference call by surrogates to criticize Obama's economic policies.
"We are getting started with a general election campaign, and people will get to know me better and they will get to know (Obama) better as well. And they will look at his record, which ultimately is the record upon which a campaign is going to be waged," Romney told Fox News.
He blasted job losses during Obama's presidency, and when asked about a recent poll that showed Americans found Obama more likable, Romney said: "The person I am out of touch with is Barack Obama. I am in touch with the American people."
Obama, meanwhile, continued his push for Congress to pass a tax measure that would ensure that millionaires -- like Romney -- pay a higher tax rate than middle-class workers.
"It's just plain wrong that middle-class Americans pay a higher share of their income in taxes than some millionaires and billionaires," Obama told a White House event, flanked by millionaires who support the proposed measure.
Republicans want to cut taxes for the wealthy, which would mean cutting spending on programs that spur economic growth and benefit the middle class, senior citizens and the poor, Obama argued.
"They want to double down on some of the inequities that already exist in the tax code," he said, adding such a step means "either you've got to borrow more money to pay down a deeper deficit, or you've got to demand deeper sacrifices from the middle class and you've got to cut investments that help us grow as an economy."
Citing "significant" deficits and the need to be competitive in the 21st century "technologically integrated economy," Obama said:"We can't afford to keep spending more money on tax cuts for wealthy Americans who don't need them and weren't even asking for them."
In a swipe at GOP economic policy, Obama added: "In America, prosperity has never just trickled down from the wealthy few."
Also Wednesday, the Obama campaign released a video highlighting Romney's conservative stances on issues such as abortion rights, health care reform and immigration reform. The video concludes with Romney's declaration on the campaign trail that he was "a severely conservative Republican governor."
The competing messages were attempts by both sides to frame what is expected to be a close and vicious general election campaign in a favorable perspective.
Obama portrays Romney and Republicans as protectors of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, while Romney and his party say Obama has stifled economic recovery and failed to effectively tackle deficit reduction.
With Santorum's departure from the Republican race, Romney is now the certain GOP nominee. He still needs to win several hundred delegates to clinch the nomination, but Santorum was his top remaining challenger, and Tuesday's announcement leaves Romney's path free of obstacles.
However, Romney's campaign still struggles to generate enthusiasm among the GOP conservative base, which questions his more moderate stances as Massachusetts governor.
Sources said Romney wants Santorum -- who had strong support among social conservatives, including Christian evangelicals -- to quickly endorse his campaign. While Romney and Santorum aides said the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania will work to defeat Obama, it was unclear when or if Santorum would offer a full-throated endorsement for Romney.
In his announcement Tuesday that he was suspending his campaign, Santorum never mentioned Romney.
"I expect when I finally become the nominee, and I hope that happens soon, that we'll be campaigning together, we'll be working together," Romney said Wednesday. "We share very much the same beliefs about the course the nation must take and the fact that under this president, America is not going in the right direction."
Santorum has consistently said the party needed a true conservative candidate -- himself -- to defeat Obama, and he has relentlessly attacked Romney's support for health care reforms in Massachusetts that included a mandate for coverage similar to the 2010 federal health care law despised by conservatives.
Romney's difficulty with conservatives was evident Tuesday, as two groups known for right-wing stances on social issues commended Santorum's campaign effort but made no mention of Romney.
On Wednesday, he said he would try to attract Santorum's evangelical and socially conservative supporters by leveraging appearances with the former candidate.
"We campaign together and make sure we see these people and get a chance to talk to them about issues that all Americans care about," Romney said. "I think you see our party, and you will see our party more united than it's been in a long, long time, in part because President Obama has taken America in such a different course than we have ever gone as a nation before."
Santorum's announcement followed the weekend hospitalization of his 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, and came in the face of tightening poll numbers in Pennsylvania ahead of the April 24 primary.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we made the decision to get into this race around our kitchen table, against all the odds," Santorum told a news conference, flanked by emotional family members. "We made a decision over the weekend that while the presidential race for us is over, and I will suspend my campaign effective today, we are not done fighting."
Santorum and Romney spoke before the announcement, and Romney told supporters in Delaware that Santorum "will continue to have a major role in the Republican Party."
"We exchanged our thoughts about going forward, and we both have a great deal of interest in seeing the country taken in a very different path," said Romney, who is making his second bid for the GOP nomination.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another GOP contender, who's trailing well behind Romney and Santorum, also congratulated Santorum for a "remarkable campaign" that showed the appeal of conservative principles.
Both Gingrich and the other challenger, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, said they intended to stay in the race to the Republican convention in August.
"I think it makes it clearer and simpler," Gingrich said of Santorum's decision while campaigning in North Carolina later Tuesday. "There is one conservative voice in the race, and then there is a moderate, and I think (that) makes it easier to articulate and to focus on the platform issues I want to focus on."
The Obama campaign immediately took aim at Romney after Santorum's announcement, with campaign manager Jim Messina saying it was "no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to grind down his opponents under an avalanche of negative ads."
"The more the American people see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him and the less they trust him," Messina said in a statement. "While calling himself the 'ideal candidate' for the tea party, he has promised to return to the same policies that created the economic crisis and has alienated women, middle-class families and Hispanic Americans."
Santorum advisers said the final decision to suspend the campaign, which allows him to continue raising money and probably keep control of delegates won so far, came Monday night and was based on three factors.
Santorum needed the Texas primary on May 29, with 154 delegates at stake, to be winner-take-all instead of the proportional allocation system based on vote results now in place. However, a complex process for changing the allocation method made that unlikely, they said.
In addition, Santorum needed Gingrich to step aside so Santorum could bring together the conservative right, but Gingrich stayed in the race, they said. Santorum also needed to win Pennsylvania, which remained possible but would require large amounts of time and money against an expected Romney offensive there, the advisers said.
Santorum had canceled two events earlier Tuesday while adding an afternoon event that turned out to be his withdrawal announcement. Spokesman Hogan Gidley said the two morning events were canceled to allow Santorum and his wife, Karen, to "settle in at home" with their young daughter, known as Bella.
Bella was born with trisomy 18, a serious chromosomal condition that interferes with development. Half of patients with the condition do not survive past the first week of life, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Meanwhile, a poll Tuesday showed Romney trailing Obama in a head-to-head matchup, though voters remain split on which presidential contender is best equipped to handle the economy.
The survey, from Washington Post/ABC News, showed that 51% of Americans would choose Obama if the election were held now, compared with 44% for Romney.
According to the polling data, Americans are divided on which candidate would best handle economic issues, with 47% favoring Romney while 43% named Obama. When asked which man would be better at creating jobs, 46% named Obama and 43% said Romney. Both margins were within the poll's 3.5 percentage point sampling error.
Voters were less divided on other key issues, with 53% saying Obama was best poised to handle international affairs, compared with 36% who said Romney. Conversely, when asked which man would do a better job of reducing the federal deficit, 51% said Romney and 38% said Obama.
In terms of likability, Obama held a clear advantage, with 64% of Americans polled saying the president was a more friendly and likable person, a more than 2-to-1 advantage over Romney, who was at 26%.
The serious gender gap between the two candidates -- also seen in recent Gallup and CNN/ORC polls -- appeared in the new poll. Obama had the support of 57% of women, compared with 38% who said they backed Romney, while Romney had the backing of 52% of men, compared with 44% who backed Obama.
Among another important voting bloc -- independents -- the poll shows a much tighter race, with 48% backing Romney compared with 46% for Obama, also within the survey's sampling error.
CNN's latest estimate of the GOP delegate tally shows Romney with 659, Santorum with 275, Gingrich with 140 and Paul with 71. It takes 1,144 delegates to clinch the nomination.
New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware vote on April 24, in addition to Pennsylvania. In all, 231 delegates are up for grabs in the five states.
The goal now for Gingrich and Paul is to prevent Romney from reaching the 1,144-delegate threshold before the convention. While all but conceding the GOP race, Gingrich said Sunday that he won't give up on trying to influence the party's platform that emerges going into the general election.
On Wednesday, though, Gingrich spent time explaining how a technical glitch caused his campaign to bounce a $500 check for Utah primary election fees.