ABC News’ Michael Falcone reports:

It’s only a matter of time before Mitt Romney will have to open a major offensive against newly-crowned GOP presidential front-runner Rick Perry.And it seems that Romney is waking up to that reality Tuesday morning.

In a speech the former Massachusetts governor is set to deliver in San Antonio, Texas — Perry’s home turf — Romney plans to deploy a veiled attack line against the Texas governor — one that we’re certain to hear more of during the primary season.

In his remarks, Romney plans to blast “career politicians” — a dig aimed as much at Perry as it is at Democrats in Washington.

“I am a conservative businessman,” Romney will say in Texas today, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News. “I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”

It’s not the first time Romney has used the “real economy” line. He did so earlier this month at a campaign event in New Hampshire just days after Perry officially entered the presidential race.

“Understanding how the economy works by having worked in the real economy is finally essential in the White House,” Romney told a New Hampshire audience.

Perry, who was campaigning in Iowa at the time,  told reporters, “Send him my love” and blew an air kiss — evidently directed at Romney.

“Take a look at his record when he was governor, take a look at my record,” Perry said on Aug. 15.

Romney never mentions Perry by name in his remarks on Tuesday, and much of the rest of his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention will focus on attacking President Obama on the economy, on foreign and defense policy and his handling of the crisis in Libya.

“We stand near a threshold of profound economic misery,” Romney will say. “Four more years on the same political path could prove disastrous.”