Obama says GOP challenger Romney has a bad case of "Romnesia."
With the presidential election two weeks away, President Barack Obama has dubbed a new catchphrase for GOP challenger Mitt Romney's attempts to appeal to moderates by shifting his conservative hardliner stance.
And it's trending worldwide on Twitter.
"Romnesia" was the condition that Obama accused Romney of suffering from during a rally on Friday in Northern Virginia, where he took jabs at Romney's perceived attempts to change his position on several key issues, CNN reported.
"Now that we're about two weeks from the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think that he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year," President Obama told women at a rally Friday at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
Obama took aim at Romney's stances on coal, contraception, taxes, and equal pay, drawing a roar of approval from the crowd of 9,000, a number confirmed by campaign officials to the Huffington Post.
The attacks reflect an increase in intensity from the Obama campaign in what is becoming a closely contested presidential race. Romney's performance in the first presidential debate Oct. 3 allowed him to gain ground on Obama in multiple opinion polls.
President Obama has responded since with a stronger second debate on Oct. 16-which consensus from analysts says he won-and a reinvigorated push on the campaign trail, exemplified by Friday's Virginia stop, a swing state where Obama holds a narrow lead over Romney in opinion polls collected by Real Clear Politics.
"If you say you're for equal pay for equal work but you keep refusing to say whether or not you will sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia," Obama said,
That remark refers to Romney's stance on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed into law in 2009 by President Obama, which strengthens the ability of women to sue employers over unequal pay.
As the Huffington Post reported this week, Romney had faced tough questions over where he would have opposed the act if he were the president in 2009-a position that was never clearly defined until Ed Gillespie, a top advisor from the Romney campaign, told the Post that Romney had opposed the bill in 2009, but he would not repeal it if elected.
However, after the story came out, the Romney camp sent a statement out from Gillespie retracting his comments.
"I was wrong when I said last night Governor Romney opposed the Lily Ledbetter act," the statement read. "He never weighed in on it. As President, he would not seek to repeal it."
The "Romnesia" phrase appears to be sticking, as on Friday afternoon, "#Romnesia" began trending worldwide on Twitter.
"What is #Romnesia? When you etch a sketch everything you once believed until you make it up all over again. True Dat?," tweeted veteran Democratic strategist Donna Brazille, who was campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000.
"HAHAHAHA #ROMNESIA LOVE YOU #OBAMA," tweeted Bron Pedulla-Smith.
"Candy reminds #romnesia that he was for assault weapons ban before he was against it @mittromney #debates," typed Rick Palacio.
The Romney camp issued a response Friday that accused President Obama of stooping to "scare tactics."
"Women haven't forgotten how we've suffered over the last four years in the Obama economy with higher taxes, higher unemployment, and record levels of poverty," the statement from Republican delegate Barbara Comstock read.