The General Election in Six Soundbites

AP Photo

In Wisconsin Friday, Mitt Romney made a conscious turn from primary candidate to general election warrior. President Barack Obama also gave a fiery speech Friday aimed at defining the choices in the general election.

Get used to hearing these phrases and contrasts for the next eight months:

"He has spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new Government-Centered Society.  I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of our Opportunity Society, led by free people and free enterprises." -Mitt Romney

"Their philosophy is simple: you're on your own…That's the cramped narrow conception they have of liberty, and they are wrong. They are wrong." -Barack Obama

"Since Barack Obama became president, over 800,000 Americans have lost their jobs…Over 2,000 Chrysler and GM dealerships have closed and 22 automobile manufacturing plants have been shuttered or idled." -Mitt Romney

"I want to report: that in three years, because of what so many of you did in 2008, we've begun to see what change looks like.. Change is the decision we made to rescue an auto industry that was on the verge of collapse-even when some said, let's let Detroit go bankrupt.. One million jobs were at stake. So we weren't going to let that happen. And today GM is back on top as the world's number one automaker -  recorded the highest profits in a hundred years, 200,000 new jobs over the last two and a half years. The American auto industry is back." -Barack Obama

"Barack Obama once said that his work as a community organizer motivated him to help "communities that had been ravaged by plant closings."  His desire to help others could not be more admirable but it's clear that he saw free enterprise as the villain and not the solution." -Mitt Romney

"They want to go back to the days where Wall Street played by its own rules. They want to go back to the day when insurance companies could do whatever they wanted to you" -Barack Obama