Romney Announces 2012 Prez Bid

The Washington Post reports:

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney launched his second presidential campaign here on Thursday, officially joining a presidential field in which he is the nominal frontrunner.

In a speech declaring his candidacy, Romney delivered a broadside against President Obama, who he charged “has failed America.”

Romney said the federal government under Obama “has grown to consume almost 40 percent of our economy” and that “we are only inches away from ceasing to be a free-market economy.” He pledged that, if elected, he would “cap federal spending at 20 percent or less” of gross domestic product “and finally, finally balance the budget.”

He also promised to “return responsibility and authority to the states for dozens of government programs,” starting with “a complete repeal of Obamacare.” He referred to the health-care overhaul law that was Obama’s signature domestic initiative and that was modeled in part on a law Romney pushed through as governor of Massachusetts.

Romney’s announcement was a marked contrast to his presidential rollout four years ago. Then, he delivered a soaring speech before some 800 supporters at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., that covered an array of issues from jihadism to American ingenuity. Then he flew by private jet to campaign in Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida before staging a major fundraiser in his hometown of Boston.

This time, Romney aimed for a lower-key rollout, with a simple gathering on a rolling hayfield in New Hampshire. It is his only public event of the day, although Romney will host a town hall meeting Friday morning in Manchester. Tickets to the kickoff event say, “A Cookout with Mitt & Ann,” and indeed campaign volunteers were serving his wife Ann Romney’s favorite chili recipe from a line of crockpots.

Romney spoke a top a farm trailer in front of a 250-year-old barn and flanked by lilac trees. Scores of supporters sat around him on bales of hay.

The announcement drew a barrage of attacks — not just from Democrats but from the campaign at least one of his Republican rivals, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr.

The Huntsman campaign distributed data to reporters showing the unemployment rate was higher in Massachusetts than in Utah and Minnesota throughout a two-year period when Romney, Huntsman and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty were serving in office.