Obama: Mitt suffers from ‘Romnesia’

President Obama on Friday mocked Mitt Romney’s recent efforts to appeal to centrist voters, telling supporters at a Virginia rally that his Republican rival is suffering from “Romnesia.” 

{mosads}”He’s forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting you would too,” Obama told an estimated crowd of 9,000 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. 

“He’s backtracking and sidestepping. We’ve got to name this condition he’s going through. I think it’s called ‘Romnesia.’ I think that’s what he’s going through.”

The president went on to list the “symptoms” of the condition in a riff reminiscent of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck If” comedy routine.

“If you say you would protect a woman’s right to choose, but you stand up at a debate and say you would be delighted to sign a bill that banned all abortions … you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you might have Romnesia,” Obama quipped.

The president delivered similar lines targeting Romney for refusing to express support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and his own tax plan.

“If you say you’re for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia,” Obama said.

But, the president joked, he has a prescription to help.

“If you come down with a case of Romnesia, and you can’t seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the policies you’ve had for the six years you’ve been running for president, there’s good news,” Obama said. “ObamaCare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up. We’ve got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Reaction was swift from the Romney campaign. Ryan Williams, a Romney spokesman, accused the president on Twitter of “Dean-screaming his way through his speech.” It was a reference to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s (D) infamous speech after losing the Iowa caucuses in 2004.

Romney strategist Danny Diaz, meanwhile, tweeted that “America doesn’t need a comedy routine, it needs a serious plan to fix the economy.”

But Obama’s new attack was a nearly instant hit on Twitter, becoming a top trending term worldwide within the hour.

The president’s speech in the Northern Virginia suburbs was squarely targeted at women, an important constituency in the densely populated Washington suburbs. 

In addition to his “Romnesia” routine, Obama again targeted Romney on his “binders full of women” remark at Tuesday’s presidential debate.

“You don’t want someone who needs to ask for binders of women,” Obama said. “You want a president who has already appointed two unbelievable women to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Obama was introduced at the rally by Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, who announced Friday she will campaign full time for the president until Election Day. 

Obama also cited New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s Thursday column, which blasted Romney’s job proposal as a “snow job.”

“When folks who don’t actually work for Gov. Romney start crunching the numbers, turns out his tax plan doesn’t add up, his jobs plan doesn’t add jobs … there’s no jobs plan, just a snow job on the American people,” Obama said.

Updated at 1:59 p.m.