Mitt Romney said he found President Obama's acceptance speech Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention "extraordinarily disappointing" at a pep rally in northwestern Iowa.
"I was surprised by his address because I expected him to confront the major challenge of the last four years: the economy," Romney said.
"But he did not," he continued. "Instead it was a whole series of new promises he'll also be unable to keep."
The Republican presidential nominee made the comments during in his first public appearance back on the campaign trail after a week spent doing debate prep during the Democratic National Committee.
Romney said that he did not watch Obama's speech, but instead read it this morning. The Republican hopeful looked to draw comparisons to Obama's speech in 2008, where Romney said he "set out a whole bunch of lofty goals" that he failed to accomplish.
"You might have expected the president of the United States to lay out a plan of what he would do to get this economy going and get people back to work again," Romney said. "He didn't do that."
Romney also again hammered Obama over a disappointing August jobs report. In a statement earlier Friday, Romney said that "if last night was the party, this morning is the hangover."
Addressing the crowd of 2,600 supporters — the campaign estimated as many as 1,000 more could not get into the event — Romney said Friday that the August jobs numbers were "simply unimaginable."
"The president said by at this point we'd be at 5.4 percent unemployment ... had his policies worked as he thought they'd do, 9 million more Americans would be working," Romney said.
That drew cheers from the assembled crowd, waving campaign signs and large foam hands shaped like baseball mitts with "Mitt" printed on the front.
The presidential hopeful also debuted a new line of attack that had been previewed by campaign aides in recent days, seizing on a video played at the Democratic National Convention that argued "government is the only thing we all belong to."
"At convention they had that video that says we all belong to the government. Boy they got that one wrong, didn’t they," Romney said.
The Obama campaign blasted back at Romney in a statement later Friday.
“Mitt Romney keeps saying that he wants to make America stronger, but we know he would do just the opposite. He would give budget-busting tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans paid for by raising taxes on the middle class, make deep cuts to critical investments like education, and turn Medicare into a voucher program," said Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith.
