WASHINGTON — Republican front-runner Mitt Romney attacked President Barack Obama's truthfulness, accusing him of running a "hide-and-seek" re-election campaign designed to distract voters from his first-term record while denying them information about his plans for a second.
Romney told an audience of newspaper editors and publishers on April 4 that Obama’s recent remarks to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on a second-term arms reduction treaty had called "his candor into question."
Romney, the likely Republican challenger to Obama in November, also accused the president of undergoing "a series of election-year conversions" on taxes, government regulation and energy production.
Romney himself has been sharply criticized by Rick Santorum and other Republican rivals for changing his own positions on issues ranging from abortion to climate control as part of an attempt to win the backing of conservative primary voters. Earlier this year, he reversed course on the minimum wage to bring his stance in line with party orthodoxy, saying he no longer believes it should rise along with inflation.
Romney’s standing as the likely challenger to Obama was confirmed by three primary victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C on April 3. The former Massachusetts governor holds a commanding lead in delegates to the Republican National Convention and is on a pace to clinch the party’s top prize by the end of the primary season in June.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has vowed to stay in the race despite calls by Romney to quit the race so that Republicans can line up behind one candidate. Sen. John McCain, defeated by Obama in the 2008 election, on Wednesday joined the growing group of Republicans calling for Santorum to make a "graceful exit."
The bulk of Romney’s remarks Wednesday amounted to a rebuttal of sorts to Obama, who spoke from the same stage on April 3 to the annual meeting of The Associated Press. The president criticized a newly drafted Republican budget in Congress represented a radical vision.
Romney disagreed. He said that instead of laying out plans for a second term, Obama "railed against arguments no one is making — and criticized policies no one is proposing. It’s one of his favorite strategies, setting up straw men to distract from his record."
The Republican highlighted two areas in which he said Obama has been particularly opaque about his plans, one involving presidential comments made recently to Medvedev and the other relating to the future of the government’s largest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare.
Obama told Medvedev in a remark picked up on a microphone that he would have more flexibility to negotiate an arms treaty with Russia after the U.S. election. White House aides have since said it was a statement of the obvious.
But Romney said the episode raises questions.
"What exactly does President Obama intend to do differently once he is no longer accountable to the voters?" he asked. "With all the challenges the nation faces, this is not the time for President Obama’s hide-and-seek campaign."
As for Medicare and Social Security, Romney said he has outlined plans to preserve both for current or near retirees, with changes to extend the programs for future generations.
The candidates face a three-week primary intermission before the next contests in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
