Obama/Biden Campaign hits Romney on negative campaigning and victory among a weak field following primary win

The Obama Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter penned a scathing release Wednesday morning in what appears to be an attempt to damper the mood following Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's victory in the Florida GOP primary Tuesday.

"Mitt Romney’s win in Florida came at a very steep price. First, he and his allies had to spend

more than $15 million – five times what Newt Gingrich’s team spent – on an air assault to take

out what is widely regarded as weak competition. Second, and more ominously for Romney, his

unprecedentedly negative, far-right Florida campaign continued to damage him among the swing

voters he would need in November."

Cutter went on to reiterate some of Newt Gingrich's rhetoric, writing that his victory does not reflect voters' satisfaction with the former Massachusetts governor's positions but rather "the fact that Romney and his SuperPAC allies carpet-bombed Gingrich by spending five times as much money on Florida's airwaves." Cutter repeatedly labels the 2012 Republican presidential candidates as a weak field, citing a Pew Research Center poll that found that nearly 3 in 5 Republican primary voters want another candidate to enter the race. Cutter speculates that "the more voters get to know Romney, the more they will dislike him,"citing several recent polls indicating disappointment and dissatisfaction among independents and Republicans towards Romney.

"Romney's unique ability to push key constituencies away rather than attract their support will continue to weaken his appeal to general-election voters, no matter how many primary delegates he secures," Cutter concludes.

It's tough to determine whether the release is a scoff at what the Obama campaign believes to be a truly weak front-runner, or a preemptive strike from a nervous staff trying to reelect an unpopular President.

President Obama's state-by-state approval numbers released by Gallup Tuesday show that if Obama were to carry only those states where he had a net positive approval rating in 2011, the President would lose the 2012 election to the Republican nominee 323 electoral votes to 215.