WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) – A proposed $10 million conservative ad campaign seeking to revive President Barack Obama’s link to his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright ignited a political firestorm on Thursday, with Obama’s camp and Republican Mitt Romney trading charges of character assassination.

A conservative group backing Romney looked at but then rejected a plan to air television ads reminding voters of Wright, the Chicago pastor whose racially charged sermons prompted Obama to give a major speech on race during the 2008 presidential campaign.

The group is a “Super PAC” independent political organization bankrolled by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team and an increasingly active force in U.S. conservative politics.

After the New York Times revealed the ad plan in its Thursday editions, the Super PAC released a statement saying the proposed ads reflected an approach to politics that Ricketts rejected.

But the newspaper’s report launched a heated exchange between the Obama and Romney camps that offered a glimpse of how personal the White House race has become.

Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge Obama in the Nov. 6 election, repudiated the proposed ad buy and called it the “wrong course” before launching his own assault on Obama’s campaign for its recent video criticizing Romney’s work heading the private equity firm Bain Capital.

“I’ve been disappointed in the president’s campaign to date, which has focused on character assassination. I just think that we are wiser to talk about the issues of the day,” Romney told reporters in Jacksonville, Florida.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A conservative group backing Republican Mitt Romney on Thursday rejected a planned $10 million ad campaign that would have revived the link between President Barack Obama and his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

A divisive figure from the 2008 presidential election, Wright was briefly at the center of a fire storm again when an independent “Super PAC” group was reported to be considering a series of ads reminding voters of Obama’s association with him.

The plan from a group of Republican strategists was presented to a Super PAC bankrolled by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team and an increasingly active force in conservative politics.

After The New York Times reported on the plan in its Thursday editions, the group released a statement saying it reflected an approach to politics that Ricketts rejected.

“It was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” said the statement by Brian Baker, president of Ricketts’s Ending Spending Action Fund.

Former spiritual adviser Wright’s racially charged Chicago sermons became an issue in the 2008 campaign and forced Obama to deliver a major speech on race relations.

Before the idea was quashed, reports of ads featuring Wright ignited a heated exchange between the Obama and Romney camps that offered a glimpse of how rough and personal the White House race could become.

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) – Out past the vacant storefronts and abandoned buildings, beyond the shuttered steel mills and decaying industrial plants, residents of eastern Ohio suddenly are seeing dollar signs.

In a region more accustomed to hard times than optimism, residents hope that a boom in shale gas drilling using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – will lead to wealth, jobs and a reservoir of domestic energy that could dramatically boost the area’s fortunes.

But the growth of fracking here and across the nation has raised concerns about contaminated groundwater, how to dispose of toxic waste and even whether fracking causes earthquakes.

In Ohio, that has created an election-year challenge for Democratic President Barack Obama.

With the presidential campaign focused on jobs, the economy and the need to cut U.S. dependency on foreign oil, Obama’s administration has walked a fine line in trying to impose environmental rules on the growing fracking industry without stifling badly needed jobs or a vast supply of domestic energy.

It is a particularly delicate issue in Ohio, a politically divided state that may play a key role in determining whether Obama or presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney wins the presidency in the November 6 election.

The optimism over fracking in eastern Ohio springs from its spot atop the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which hold broad deposits of natural gas and crude oil. Energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy Corp and MarkWest Energy Partners are investing billions of dollars to tap the shale in a process that could reinvigorate economically stunted cities such as Steubenville.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The battle for the White House is still in its early, often silly stages – a time when issues such as the economy and national security can be overshadowed by spats over which candidate would be better for dogs.

But in the end, the November 6 election between Democratic President Barack Obama and presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney will hinge on 10 politically divided states, nine of which Obama won when he defeated Republican John McCain in 2008.

The states range from former Republican strongholds such as North Carolina and Virginia to a few key battlegrounds – namely Ohio, Florida and Nevada – where a sputtering economy gives Romney a chance to break through. Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Arizona and New Hampshire also are up for grabs.

Obama dramatically expanded the political playing field for Democrats in 2008 by winning states such as Indiana that had not backed a Democratic presidential contender in a generation.

In this year’s state-by-state race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, Obama is the early favorite in states that would give him 227 electoral votes. Romney leads in states that would give him 180.

That gives Obama larger room for error than Romney as the two wrestle for the 131 electoral votes at stake in the toss-up or “swing” states.

A state’s electoral votes reflect its number of seats in Congress, most of which are based on population.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The battle for the White House is still in its early, often silly stages – a time when issues such as the economy and national security can be overshadowed by spats over which candidate would be better for dogs.

But in the end, the November 6 election between Democratic President Barack Obama and presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney will hinge on 10 politically divided states, nine of which Obama won when he defeated Republican John McCain in 2008.

The states range from former Republican strongholds such as North Carolina and Virginia to a few key battlegrounds – namely Ohio, Florida and Nevada – where a sputtering economy gives Romney a chance to break through. Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Arizona and New Hampshire also are up for grabs.

Obama dramatically expanded the political playing field for Democrats in 2008 by winning states such as Indiana that had not backed a Democratic presidential contender in a generation.

In this year’s state-by-state race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, Obama is the early favorite in states that would give him 227 electoral votes. Romney leads in states that would give him 180.

That gives Obama larger room for error than Romney as the two wrestle for the 131 electoral votes at stake in the toss-up or “swing” states.

A state’s electoral votes reflect its number of seats in Congress, most of which are based on population.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The 2012 presidential election is more than six months away, but here is what we know so far: It is going to be close, it is going to be nasty, and the outcome could turn on a series of unpredictable events.

Democratic President Barack Obama is a slight favorite now, but as tightening poll numbers suggest, his lead over Republican Mitt Romney is tenuous.

A tepid economic recovery, voter pessimism about the future and a job approval rating largely stuck in the danger zone below 50 percent mean Obama could have a hard time matching his performance in 2008, when enthusiasm for his promise of change propelled him to victory over Republican Senator John McCain with 53 percent of the vote.

Such factors, along with a motivated Republican Party determined to oust Obama, mean that despite a bruising Republican primary fight that dented Romney’s popularity – particularly among women – the Republican has plenty of reason for hope in the November 6 election.

Political analysts see a fall election fight that looks more like the nail-biters won by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 than Obama’s relative blowout victory in 2008.

Three-quarters of American voters still think the economy – the top election issue by far in most polls – is in a recession, a recent ABC/Washington Post survey found, and more voters trust Romney to deal with the economy than Obama.

Polls also routinely indicate that more than six of every 10 voters think the nation is on the wrong track, a critical and closely watched measure of the collective American psyche.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney fired sharp attacks at each other on Wednesday as they opened a seven-month battle for the White House that got ugly fast.

Both campaigns moved quickly to frame the choice for voters one day after Romney’s chief rival, conservative Rick Santorum, dropped out, giving the former Massachusetts governor a clear path to the Republican nomination to challenge Obama in November’s election.

On cue, the Obama campaign released a video of Romney’s more awkward moments on the campaign trail and again portrayed him as a wealthy, out-of-touch conservative.

Romney attacked Obama’s economic leadership as a failure and described him as a throwback to the era of “big-government” Democrats.

The exchanges were a sign of things to come in a general election fight for the White House between two candidates who have shown they are willing to throw a punch.

Obama’s campaign video entitled “Memories to Last a Lifetime” reminded voters of potentially embarrassing statements from Romney in the Republican primary campaign. Among them were his declaration that “corporations are people” and his claim to have been a “severely conservative” governor of Massachusetts.

“Mitt Romney: A severely conservative nominee. Remember that,” the video says, pre-empting any move by Romney to tack to the center to win independents in the coming months.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney fired a series of sharp attacks at each other on Wednesday as they opened a seven-month battle for the White House that is getting ugly fast.

Both campaigns moved quickly to frame the choice for voters one day after Romney’s chief rival, conservative Rick Santorum, dropped out, giving the former Massachusetts governor a clear path to the Republican nomination to challenge Obama in November’s election.

On cue, the Obama campaign released a video of Romney’s more awkward moments on the campaign trail and again portrayed him as a wealthy, out-of-touch conservative.

Romney attacked Obama’s economic leadership as a failure and described him as a throwback to the era of “big-government” Democrats.

The exchanges were a sign of things to come in a general election fight for the White House between two candidates who have shown they are willing to throw a punch.

Obama’s campaign video entitled “Memories to Last a Lifetime” reminded voters of potentially embarrassing statements from Romney in the Republican primary campaign. Among them were his declaration that “corporations are people” and his claim to have been a “severely conservative” governor of Massachusetts.

“Mitt Romney: A severely conservative nominee. Remember that,” the video says, pre-empting any move by Romney to tack to the center to win independents in the coming months.

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) – The presidential nomination race has been gripping Republicans across the nation, but it’s just a sideshow for many voters in Wisconsin’s primary next week.

Instead of the battle between White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, it’s the passionate struggle to save Republican Governor Scott Walker from a Democratic-led recall effort that is consuming Wisconsin Republicans.

Walker’s recall election, tentatively scheduled for June 5, has sucked up virtually all of the energy and focus of state Republicans, leaving the presidential candidates struggling to grab a piece of the spotlight.

“There has been so much attention on the recall that it has overshadowed everything, including the presidential campaign,” said Paul Gruber, Republican chairman in Wisconsin’s Sheboygan County. “There hasn’t been time for anyone to focus on anything else.”

Yard signs and bumper stickers backing Walker or demanding his recall are common sights across the state, and volunteers have flooded local party offices on both sides. The presidential primary has attracted little of that enthusiasm.

“Normally by this point we’d be getting flooded with requests for signs or information on the presidential candidates, but we’ve had virtually none of that. All of our requests have been for Walker,” said Bill Folk, Republican chairman in Racine County.

“The presidential primary is taking a back seat,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rick Santorum is running out of time and opportunities to stop front-runner Mitt Romney’s slow, grinding march to the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney’s convincing rout of Santorum in Illinois on Tuesday, along with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s endorsement of Romney on Wednesday, were a one-two punch that intensified questions about how long Santorum can keep his conservative campaign alive.

Romney’s Illinois win widened an already daunting lead in delegates, and Bush’s endorsement could signal that those party leaders who have been sitting out the nominating battle might be ready to begin coalescing around Romney.

Santorum needs a win in conservative Louisiana on Saturday and a breakthrough victory in the Midwestern battleground of Wisconsin on April 3 to have a chance at changing the race’s course and casting doubt on Romney’s inevitability.

Otherwise, pressure will mount for him to pull the plug on his White House bid and help the party rally around Romney as the challenger to President Barack Obama in the November 6 general election.

“I sense that Republicans in general are ready for the campaign to come to a close,” said Steve Grubbs, a former state party chairman in Iowa. “Unless Santorum does something significant, the momentum is really going to shift to Romney in the next two or three weeks.”

Romney has more than a 2-to-1 advantage over Santorum in the race for the 1,144 delegates needed for the nomination, and simple math gives Santorum little chance of catching the former Massachusetts governor in the remaining contests.