Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney continued to take the fight directly to President Obama–and not his primary rivals for the Republican presidential nomination–in a press conference today outside a metal works factory that closed shortly after the president visited it late in 2009.

Romney argued that Obama’s stimulus package, the reason for his last visit, failed, a common refrain of his of late, and pointed to his own managerial experience as an asset to America’s economic recovery.

By engaging the president in a battleground state–to be sure, one Democrats haven’t lost since 1988 and that Obama carried by ten points last time around–Romney elevates himself above the Republican field and buttresses his status in the media as the frontrunner. Any time he can spar with Obama, despised by a GOP base that only recently came to accept the president as a citizen when he released his long-form birth certificate, is a great moment for the Mormon millionaire, whose fundraising numbers this quarter are expected to be leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. [CNN]