Ms. Saul said that while “each new day brings a different made-up attack from the Obama campaign, what doesn’t change is the fact that President Obama has failed and so is going to try to tear down Mitt Romney instead of talking about his record.”

Still, voters should ready themselves for reminders from the Obama campaign that Mr. Romney proposed eliminating Title X, the only federal program devoted to family planning, that he suggested letting the foreclosure process “run its course and hit the bottom,” and that he staked out a position on immigration that was to the right of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The campaign will make certain it is well known that Mr. Romney just agreed to be the commencement speaker at the conservative Liberty University; in fact, within minutes of Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s announcement on Thursday, Democratic operatives were e-mailing the news around.

“Mitt Romney has spent the last two years taking the most extreme positions of his party, whether it’s on economic policy or social policy,” said Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager of Mr. Obama’s re-election team. “He can try to flip-flop to the center, but who is going to believe him?”

David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said in a telephone interview, “Whether it’s tax policy, whether it’s his approach to abortion, gay rights, immigration, he’s the most conservative nominee that they’ve had going back to Goldwater.” He added that “one of the key issues in the campaign is to make sure people know that.”

But what about David Axelrod’s Twitter feed, which has, nonstop for the past few months, seemed fixated on a depiction of Mr. Romney as the ultimate feather in the wind? (“Yesterday, Mitt predicted victory. Today, he says 3d would be fine. He can’t even stick to the same position on THAT!” Mr. Axelrod, an Obama adviser, said on Twitter on the morning of the Iowa caucuses in January.)

Obama strategists insist they’re not flip-flopping on the flip-flopper label, which they believe can serve them well at any given moment. But there appears to be a clear realization that for general election purposes, they may do better with an emphasis on Mr. Romney’s conservative stances.

The reason goes back to the very thing that has, all along, made Mr. Romney the candidate whom the Obama campaign has always viewed as the most formidable out of the Republican herd. Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, the architect of a health care plan which is remarkably similar to Mr. Obama’s signature domestic policy item, is still viewed among many independents as something of a moderate, and as such, he is more dangerous to Mr. Obama in a general election than the rest of the Republican field.

That viewpoint made Mr. Romney vulnerable during the Republican primaries and at least partly explains his fierce embrace of conservation positions to offset Republican doubts. But it may make him tougher to beat in November. Mr. Romney himself seemed to acknowledge his need to move to the center during his overheard remarks on Sunday, when he told supporters that “we have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party,” and warned that big Latino support for Mr. Obama “spells doom for us.” While he did not explicitly endorse a Republican proposal to chart a path to legality for the offspring of illegal residents, he didn’t dismiss the idea either.