At Times, Obama And His Cyberself Differ on Tactics VIRGINIA BEACH - For a moment on Friday, the cyber-Barack Obama was perfectly at odds with the flesh-and-blood version. Speaking to 1,400 supporters at a high school here, President Obama voiced his familiar lament that "there is so much negativity and so much cynicism" in politics that he could understand if voters tuned out the election. Minutes earlier on Twitter, he had written, "Why Mitt Romney's end date at his buyout firm matters," linking to a blog post about the tempest over his Republican challenger's departure from Bain Capital. Mr. Obama's Twitter account is maintained by his campaign staff, which makes clear that only posts signed with the initials B.O. are actually written by him. That's fairly obvious, given that on Thursday, in between pounding Mr. Romney for perceived discrepancies in the Bain story, "Barack Obama" tweeted: "Stickers! Get them here. But it underscores the vivid contrast between what Mr. Obama says, and what is often said in his name. The president did not address the questions about Bain Capital in his stump speech. In his first stop of the day, he even left out a line he has used about how Mr. Romney's buyout firm was celebrated as a "pioneer" of outsourcing. As a busy day of campaigning unfolded, however, Mr. Obama shrugged off his reluctance to talk about Mr. Romney and Bain. The line about Bain being an outsourcing pioneer reappeared later in a speech in Hampton. And in an interview with a local TV station, WJLA, Mr. Obama said that Mr. Romney ought to answer questions about his relationship with the firm after he left in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. "Ultimately, Mr. Romney, I think, is going to have to answer those questions because if he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations," he said. The Romney campaign did not give Mr. Obama any quarter either. Virginia, a once reliably Republican state that Mr. Obama became the first Democrat to win since 1964, looms as one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds in 2012. The president acknowledged its potentially decisive role, telling an overflow crowd in Hampton before his speech, "If and when we get Virginia, we will win this election." Time to Talk Coaching Mr. Obama's advisers say he savors unscripted encounters with voters, and occasionally these moments can be revelatory. Dropping in for a beer last week at Ziggy's Pub and Restaurant in Amherst, Ohio, the president found himself explaining to a table of curious school administrators why the White House was waiving states" compliance with the No Child Left Behind law. Moments earlier, he had an intense exchange with Art Davis, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who complained about delays in processing disability claims for veterans. But then there are encounters like his kitchen-table conversation with a Cedar Rapids couple, Jason and Ali McLaughlin. Though avidly promoted by the campaign, it got off to a desultory start, with Mr. McLaughlin and the president comparing notes about how they coach girls" sports teams ("Now, they run plays!" Mr. Obama marveled about his daughter Sasha's team). Neither said a word about middle-class tax cuts - the ostensible subject of the meeting - until after the reporters had been ushered out. Help for Veterans Mr. Obama has assiduously cultivated military veterans, giving tax credits to employers that hire returning veterans and extracting pledges from companies like Procter & Gamble and Tyson Foods to hire 100,000 veterans and their spouses. He also brought home the last soldiers from Iraq and is winding down the war in Afghanistan. The Romney campaign, however, is determined to sour any affection these voters have for Mr. Obama, warning that the automatic cuts in Pentagon spending that are part of the White House's budget deal with Congress could undermine the military-dependent economy in Virginia, with its large bases and shipbuilding industry. "Virginia is probably going to be more devastated than any state in the union by this," said John F. Lehman Jr., a secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Romney, on a call organized by the campaign. The president just doesn't understand defense. He just doesn't understand how it works. On Friday, Mr. Obama stopped at a smoky Veterans of Foreign Wars hall here and had lunch at Rick's Cafe with three wives of servicemen. "I love the fact that this administration is focusing more on military families," said one, Jennifer Farlin. Prior to this, we felt lost. While the president is likely to make inroads with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, the broader military vote seems destined to stay in the Republican column. According to a Gallup poll conducted in April and May, 58 percent of veterans said they favored Mitt Romney, while only 34 percent supported Mr. Obama. Music to Suit the Crowd As Mr. Obama's campaign rallies settle into a routine, so, too, does his choice of music: a mix tape released by the campaign that runs the gamut from Arcade Fire to REO Speedwagon. The president usually takes the stage to U2"s hit "City of Blinding Lights," as he did in 2008. The opportunities for creativity, such as they are, come at the end of his stump speech, when Mr. Obama shakes hands and poses for pictures. Then, the campaign seems to tailor its music to local tastes. Mr. Obama greeted auto workers in Toledo, Ohio, and veterans in Virginia Beach to the thumping chords of Bruce Springsteen's blue-collar anthem "We Take Care of Our Own." In Cedar Rapids, the artsy city in Iowa where voters have known Mr. Obama from the earliest days of his first campaign in 2007, the soundtrack was U2"s "Even Better than the Real Thing." In Sandusky, Ohio, the local organizers chose a tune not on the playlist: "Only in America," the politically androgynous country hit by Brooks & Dunn that has been a standard for years at Republican and Democratic rallies.