Obama officially kicks off campaign in May

• Tweet

WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- President Obama officially kicks off his re-election bid May 5 with rallies on college campuses in the key states of Ohio and Virginia, his campaign said.

Campaign Manager Jim Messina described the kick-off day as "a ramp-up, not a zero-to-60 moment," Politico reported Thursday.

Messina said Obama picked Ohio and Virginia because they are "critical states." Obama will speak at Ohio State University in Columbus and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod said the president's campaign staff is eager to start commenting the record of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who swept primaries Tuesday in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.

"Romney hasn't had a job in six years -- he famously said he was 'unemployed' -- he's got every day, 24 hours a day, to run for president," Axelrod said of the former Massachusetts governor. "We don't have that advantage, and the president is going to ramp up as his schedule allows until we get to the fall."

Romney's campaign said it expects Obama to misrepresent Romney's record, Politico said.

"Americans shouldn't be surprised that President Obama's campaign will attack Mitt Romney for his experience in creating jobs," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. "Unfortunately, voters will have to expect that the Obama campaign will be running a campaign based on personal attacks to divert, distract and distort."