AFP

WASHINGTON PRESIDENT Barack Obama wants to tell America a few things about Mitt Romney: he is rich and indifferent, bad for women, and might wobble at a fateful moment as commander- in-chief.

Obama’s reelection campaign has unleashed a daily, negative, character-based slashing of his November foe, ahead of the president’s official campaign kick-off rallies in the crucial battlegrounds of Virginia and Ohio on Saturday.

In the latest volley, Obama’s camp produced a memo accusing Romney of pursuing an “extreme” agenda towards women, seeking to lock in the Republican challenger’s liabilities with the key electoral demographic.

This followed an ad branding Romney’s attitude towards the middle class as “just what you would expect from a guy who had a Swiss bank account.” Obama weighed in during his victory lap marking the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, questioning whether Romney would have made the gutsy call to launch a high-risk Navy SEAL raid.

An ad featuring an admiring ex-president Bill Clinton made a similar point. Hope and change, circa 2008, this is not.

Obama supporters point out the president is not alone in going negative: the Romney campaign flexed a true mean streak in the Republican primary.

Hard-charging Romney campaign operatives and outside groups flush with corporate cash are meanwhile readying the next anti-Obama barrage. But Obama’s tactics reflect a need to amplify Romney’s weaknesses to disqualify him as a potential president at a time when a stuttering economy is clouding his own prospects.

“Romney is coming off a bruising nomination battle that raised some doubts about his character and wants to reintroduce himself to the American people,” said Professor John Geer, a negative campaigns expert at Vanderbilt University.

“The Obama campaign is not going to allow him to do that without continuing the choir of criticism. They want to raise some doubts about his character and make him look extreme on issues.” Obama’s attacks also seek to frustrate any bid by Romney to trek to the political centre where American presidential elections are often won.

“What the president is doing in terms of campaign tactics, and his strong criticism of Romney, is not unusual for an incumbent,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University polling institute.

“Elections in which there is an incumbent are referendums on that incumbent, and given the president’s relative lukewarm job approval ratings, his team has obviously chosen to try to demonise the opposition.” Obama’s assaults partly focus on Romney’s history as a millionaire venture capitalist who Democrats say sent American jobs offshore and turfed people at ailing companies out of work.