Campaign focus shifts to guns and taxes

After a war over women dominated presidential politics this week, the campaign focus moved to guns and taxes Friday with President Barack Obama releasing his 2011 returns and certain Republican rival Mitt Romney addressing the National Rifle Association convention.

Other top Republicans -- including trailing presidential challenger Newt Gingrich, former candidate Rick Santorum, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa -- also will speak at the NRA gathering in St. Louis.

The event serves as a conservative conclave for the nation's foremost gun rights group that also supports other right-wing political causes, providing a platform for certain attacks on Obama three days after Santorum's departure from the Republican race cleared the way for Romney's eventual nomination to run against the president in November.

In addition, the timing of the convention adds extra focus to the NRA's agenda as the Trayvon Martin shooting still resonates throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the White House released Obama's tax returns, which showed that the first family's income dropped by almost $1 million in 2011 as sales from his best-selling books slowed.

The Obama family reported an adjusted gross income of $789,674 for 2011, down from $1,728,096 in the previous year. The family income topped $5.5 million in 2009.

Obama earns a salary of $400,000 for his day job. His total earnings are much higher because his books -- "Dreams from My Father," and "The Audacity of Hope" -- continue to attract buyers.

The Obamas reported paying $162,074 in federal taxes. They donated $172,130, or 22% of their income, to 39 different charities.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, noted in a statement that Obama's 2011 effective federal income tax rate is 20.5% and that the president's own policies would result in higher taxes for the Obama family.

In its own statement Friday, the Obama campaign challenged Romney to release his returns for past years, saying Romney "has yet to provide tax returns from the period in which he made hundreds of millions as a corporate buyout specialist, or as governor of Massachusetts, the experience he says qualifies him to be president."

"Mitt Romney's defiance of decades of precedent set by presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle, including his own father, begs the question -- what does he have to hide?" the campaign statement said, citing disclosure earlier this year that Romney had a Swiss bank account and established a corporation in Bermuda.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said the candidate "will release his full 2011 return when it is filed," offering no more specifics.

Romney's tax returns previously arose as an issue in January, when Democrats, along with fellow Republican presidential candidates, pressured Romney's campaign to release the documents.

On January 24, Romney's team released his 2010 tax return, as well as an estimate for 2011. Opponents quickly derided the disclosure as paltry, noting that other candidates, including Romney's father during his run for the GOP nomination in 1968, released a decade's worth of tax returns.

The forms released then showed Romney earned $42.7 million over the past two years and paid $6.2 million in taxes. Over the two years, Romney's effective tax rate -- the percentage of his income that he owed in federal income taxes -- was 14.5%.

Democrats, eager to align themselves with middle-class voters, quickly assailed Romney for paying a low tax rate while earning millions of dollars.

Obama is pushing for Congress to approve the so-called Buffett Rule, which would ensure that Americans making more than $1 million a year pay at least 30% in taxes.

On Thursday, Biden slammed Romney at a campaign stop in New Hampshire for promoting a "Romney Rule" on taxes that would benefit only millionaires like him -- a harsh comparison with the "Buffett Rule" that Democrats are promoting.

"The Buffett Rule says that multimillionaires should pay at least the same percentage of their income in taxes as middle-class families do," Biden said Thursday. "The Romney Rule says the very wealthy should keep the tax cuts and loopholes they have, and get an additional, new tax cut every year that is worth more than what the average middle-class family makes in an entire year."

In response, Saul called the Democratic attacks a diversionary tactic.

"It's no surprise with the worst job creation record in modern history that President Obama would try to distract Americans from the real issues with a series of sideshows," she said.

Campaign rhetoric kicked into high gear once Santorum suspended his bid for the GOP nomination.

On Thursday, a Democratic strategist apologized for a comment questioning Ann Romney's qualifications to advise her husband on women's economic issues, while the Romney campaign sought to exploit the controversy to help fix a gender gap problem in the race against Obama.

Hilary Rosen issued a statement after fellow Democrats, including a Twitter post on Michelle Obama's page, criticized her remarks the night before on CNN.

"I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended," said the statement by Rosen, who is a CNN contributor. "Let's declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance."

In a later interview on CNN, Rosen said that she "should not have chosen words that seemed to attack Ann Romney's choice in life" and that she hoped Ann Romney "understands I didn't mean it personally," adding "I was trying to talk about economic issues."

She also said the controversy over her remarks portended "an ugly campaign season."

The political firestorm ignited quickly after Rosen said Wednesday night on CNN's "AC360˚" that Mitt Romney shouldn't be relying on his wife for guidance on economic issues affecting women.

"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, 'Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing,' " Rosen said. "Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life."

She continued by saying Ann Romney had "never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future."

Republicans slammed Rosen's comments as disparaging to stay-at-home mothers, and top Democrats, including Obama and his chief campaign adviser, also chimed in.

On Thursday, Twitter posts attributed to Michelle Obama and Democratic National Committee head Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz took exception with Rosen's remarks.

"Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected," the first lady tweeted.

Ann Romney told Fox News earlier Thursday that raising five boys was hard work, and she hears from women all the time about economic difficulties they face.

"Look, I know what it is like to struggle," said Romney, a cancer survivor who has multiple sclerosis. "If maybe I haven't struggled as much financially as some people have, I can tell you and promise you that I have had struggles in my life. And I would love to have people understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling, and that's why we are running. We care about those people that are struggling, and we recognize that this economic recovery has been very weak."

In her appearance Thursday night on "AC360˚," Rosen said a debate over economic stances of the candidates is more important than the controversy over her remarks.

"The idea that I would create a division between stay-at-home moms and working moms is just silly. That has nothing to do with what I said," Rosen said.

With polls repeatedly showing female voters favoring Obama over the former Massachusetts governor, Romney launched a harsh attack Wednesday on how the administration's economic policies hurt women.

Rosen's comments provided another opening on the issue for the Romney campaign.

Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said Rosen was a frequent White House visitor who was saying what the Obama campaign intended.

"Clearly they are using surrogate women, including Hilary Rosen, who is a paid spokesperson, to deliver messages about Republicans that the president does not want to deliver himself for fear of the backlash," she said.

Rosen said she is not an adviser to the White House or the Democratic National Committee.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday he was unaware of how many times Rosen had visited. In a sign of the sensitivity of the issue, Carney repeatedly emphasized Obama's policies on women, such as making the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act the first piece of legislation he signed into law.

Romney's campaign still struggles to generate enthusiasm among the GOP conservative base, which questions his more moderate stances as Massachusetts governor. In addition, a Washington Post/ABC News poll this week affirmed findings of other recent polls that Romney trails Obama among female voters.

Another poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University showed Obama leading Romney in New Jersey, even under the hypothetical scenario that popular Republican Gov. Chris Christie was on the GOP ticket as Romney's running mate.

New Jersey is considered a solidly Democratic state in presidential general elections. The Quinnipiac poll also showed a Romney-Christie ticket trailing against Obama and Biden among female voters.

The Republican presidential campaign has included a conservative shift to appeal to tea party voters in the primary and caucus season. However, some socially conservative polices opposing abortion and health care coverage for contraception appear to be raising concerns among female voters.

Democrats have seized on that dynamic by emphasizing Republican stances that they say harm equal treatment and opportunity for women. In response, the Romney campaign is targeting Obama's economic policies as being bad for women.

Romney got a boost Thursday when two prominent anti-abortion groups -- the Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life -- endorsed his nomination, a sign that conservatives will coalesce around his candidacy despite concerns about his more moderate history as Massachusetts governor.

An influential Republican, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, said Thursday that Romney should aggressively focus on a policy-heavy message that questions Obama's handling of the economy.

That theme will be enough to keep the conservative base excited while also appealing to independent voters who will ultimately decide the election, Barbour said.

"This campaign is going to be waged in the center," Barbour said. "Don't ever forget that Barack Obama is the great uniter of Republicans. The party apparatus, the conservatives, the tea party, the organizations like small businesses and the NRA, they will be very active in providing volunteers, and our base will be very active. That's critically important. But the election is going to be decided by a few million people, most of whom voted for Obama last time but have the same level of buyer's remorse as ticket purchasers on the Titanic."