Romney Will Take the Bus on 6-State Campaign Swing

Since effectively nailing down the Republican nomination for president in mid-April, Mitt Romney has had to balance his time on campaign trail with jaunts to numerous fund-raising events across the country.

But that is to change Friday, when Mr. Romney trades his jet for a bus for five days of barnstorming across six states that has all the appearances of an unofficial kickoff to the general election.

He will visit small towns and meet with families and business owners, the Romney campaign announced Monday, to highlight the case that President Obama’s economic policies fail everyday Americans. The trip comes on the heels of a scorching exchange between the candidates on jobs, with Mr. Romney calling Mr. Obama “out of touch” for saying private-sector job growth was adequate, and Obama’s surrogates claiming that Mr. Romney favored laying off firefighters and teachers.

In announcing the tour, the Romney campaign said: “Too many American families have experienced a lost job, faced foreclosure, or been forced to spend their kids’ college savings just to make ends meet. These are not statistics – these are our fellow Americans.’’

The itinerary begins at the same New Hampshire farm where Mr. Romney first announced his candidacy and continues through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.

Mr. Obama won all of the states in 2008, most comfortably, but the Romney campaign believes they can be battlegrounds this year – a more aggressive map of Republican opportunities than many analysts have drawn.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker’s survival of a recall election last week has given Republican strategists hope the state can be in play in November. In Michigan, Mr. Romney’s native state, polls show a tightening of the race despite Mr. Romney’s opposition to Mr. Obama’s popular rescue of the auto industry.

From Scamman Farm in Stratham, N.H., Mr. Romney – who has been taking weekends off — will roll through Saturday and Sunday, making several stops a day, winding up in Michigan on Tuesday.