Joe Biden accuses Mitt Romney of being most out of touch candidate

Barack Obama's re-election campaign stepped up its attacks on Mitt Romney on Sunday, as Vice-President Joe Biden called him the most out of touch candidate of modern times.

The vice-president, who has been deployed by Obama as the champion of America's poor, accused Romney of "stripping people of their dignity" by trying to slash public spending and scrap the president's overhaul of the US health care system. "None of what he's offering does anything," Biden told CBS. "It's about dignity," he repeated.

"I can't remember a presidential candidate in the recent past who seemed not to understand, by what he says, what ordinary middle class people are thinking about and are concerned about," said Biden.

Biden also attacked Romney for his aggressive response to the President's leaked comment to the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, that he could be more "flexible" in negotiations on missile defence if he were re-elected. "He acts like he thinks the Cold War's still on," Biden said. He added that Romney - who is criticised for "flip-flopping" on key issues - had shown himself to be "a pretty flexible guy" himself.

His remarks came after Romney, who is expected to win Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, discarded his pitch to primary voters in favour of a new stump speech, which ignores Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich and focuses on Obama.