Romney 'Severely Kidding' About His 'Severely Conservative' Positions, Obama Says
MIAMI, Fla. - President Obama used the final fundraiser of his record-breaking campaign season tonight to cast Mitt Romney as an extreme conservative trying to reinvent himself as a moderate just weeks before the election.
"After a year in which he has been calling himself 'severely conservative,' he's now trying to convince us that he was severely kidding about everything," the president told some 700 supporters who'd paid $500 and up to see the president at the JW Marriott Marquis. His remarks echoed ones he'd made earlier today at the University of Miami, which he accidentally referred to tonight as Miami University.
In the week since Obama's lackluster debate performance, his campaign has retooled its messaging to paint Romney as a flip-flopper, eager to change his positions to sway voters.
"These days, whatever you're for, he's for, loves the middle class, loves Medicare, loves teachers. He even said that he loves the most important parts of Obamacare. Loves them!" Obama joked.
"And when it comes to all the things that he's actually promised to do as president, suddenly he's got a case of amnesia," Obama continued. "Tax breaks for outsources - I've never heard of it. Saying we should cut back on teachers - doesn't ring [a] bell. Kicking 200,000 young Floridians off their parents' insurance plan - who me?"
Tonight marked the president's last fundraising event of the campaign, his 222nd fundraiser since announcing his bid for re-election in April 2011. His rally earlier today was his last before facing off with Romney in the second presidential debate next week.