Obama lampoons Republican convention

US President Barack Obama last night ampooned the Republican National Convention as better suited to an era of black-and-white television as he declared that Mitt Romney “did not offer a single new idea” to fix the economy.

“There was a lot of talk about hard truths and bold choices, but no one actually told you what they were,” Obama said, chuckling, as he set out on a three-day tour of battleground states in the run-up to his own convention. Later, he said, the Republican gathering was so rooted in the past, there should have been a rabbit-ears antenna on the convention hall.

Yet even the site of Obama’s convention, Charlotte, North Carolina, served as an unwelcome reminder to the Democrats of an economy so weak that it threatens his chances for re-election.