Obama congratulates Romney on GOP win

President Barack Obama congratulated Mitt Romney today for winning the Republican presidential nomination, saying he looked forward to a “healthy debate.”

Romney officially won the GOP nod Tuesday after the Texas primary.

Obama said he “looked forward to an important and healthy debate about America’s future,” White House representative Ben LaBolt told The Associated Press.

It was a “brief and cordial” conversation where the two men wished each other, and their families, well in the coming weeks, the Romney camp told Reuters.

Romney is to accept the nomination during the Republican convention the week of Aug. 27 in Tampa, Florida; the presidential election is Nov. 6.

“Gov. Romney thanked the president for his congratulations and wished him and his family well,” a campaign aide said, Reuters reported.

The congenial tone ended there, however, as both sides launched fresh accusations at each other today.

Romney pointed to the government’s failed investments, while the president pointed to Romney’s failings as governor of Massachusetts.

Specifically, Romney asked why the White House invested in companies such as green energy producer Solyndra, which went bankrupt despite $528 million in federal loan guarantees.

“The fact is, every time they attack Mitt Romney for his experience in the private sector, they reinforce the idea that President Obama is hostile to the private sector,” Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, told The New York Times.

Obama’s team countered by saying Massachusetts lagged in job creation and added debt from 2003 to 2007 while Romney held office.

“There’s nothing that Gov. Romney did either in the private sector that created jobs or in the public sector that distinguished himself as a job creator,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

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