Obama admits stiff contest from Romney

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged that it is going to be a tough race with his Republican challenger Mitt Romney primarily because the economic condition of the country has not improved as it should have been.

'This is going to be a tough race, precisely because the economy is not where it needs to be yet,' Obama said in his remarks at a campaign event at San Francisco in California. Obama, the first non-white president of the country is seeking re-election in the November presidential elections.

Obama used the occasion to attack economic policies of Romney and the Republican Party.

'What are they offering? They are offering not just the Bush tax cuts, but an additional USD 5 trillion in tax cuts for folks who don't need them oftentimes. We know it will blow up the deficit, but their theory is Governor Romney's theory, the Republican leadership in Congress' theory - is that the economy grows best when we are all on our own, when the market is king, and regulations are stripped away and people can do what they please,' he said.

'We deeply believe in the free markets and we deeply believe in risk-takers and innovators being rewarded - and there's no place that innovates like northern California.

'But we all recognise that the way America became great, the way it became an economic superpower, is because, for all our individual initiative, for all our rugged individualism, there were some things that we do better together,' he said.

Obama said his and that of Romney's are two fundamentally contrasting vision. 'We are going to be facing a fundamental choice. I want this to be a fulsome debate. I want the American people to hear exactly what they are getting if the other side prevails, and what they will get if I prevail.'