Republicans take president to task over debt

His nomination now official, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney hopes he can turn Americans' frustration with the US economy and fiscal problems into a victory over President Barack Obama in November.

For months, the 2012 race for the White House has been a dead heat, with most polls of likely voters showing only a few percentage points' difference between the two candidates. While Obama consistently outpolls his opponent on "likability", poll respondents say Romney, a longtime business executive and former Massachusetts governor, would do a better job handling the economy (52 percent to 43 percent in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll).

Romney, a founder and former CEO of private equity firm Bain Capital, has a better grasp of the urgency of the nation's fiscal challenges given his history of confronting "big problems" in business, said Carlos Gutierrez, vice-chairman of the institutional clients group at Citigroup Inc and former commerce secretary under then-president George W Bush.