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Reality smacked Mitt Romney in the face twice in a 24-hour span. US President Barack Obama used the power of the presidency to ring the general election's opening bell, declaring this week in no uncertain terms that he and his mammoth organization are ready to take on Romney - whether the presumptive Republican nominee is ready or not. And despite what he may say, Romney is not. The former Massachusetts governor, who won three more primaries on Tuesday and is on track to claim his party's presidential nomination in June if not before, is facing a challenge of historic proportions. Just one Republican - Ronald Reagan - has defeated a Democratic incumbent president in the last century. And Romney faces an incumbent with five times more staff, 10 times more money, and the world's greatest bully pulpit. Using that platform on Tuesday, the president criticized Romney by name, telling news executives at the annual meeting of The Associated Press that his likely general election opponent supported a "radical" Republican budget plan he characterized as "thinly veiled social Darwinism". He accused Republican leaders of becoming so extreme that even Reagan, one of the party's most cherished heroes, would not win a Republican primary today. The president's critique came just one day after his campaign launched a TV ad in six general election battleground states that suggested that Romney stood with "Big Oil". And it all comes amid a Democratic effort to paint Romney as part of a Republican Party that Obama's party is casting as too conservative for the country. | 
