Camps swap charges: 'Dishonest' vs. 'lazy' President Barack Obama (R) and Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney participate in the Denver Debate at the University of Denver's Ritchie Center on October 3, 2012 in Denver. DENVER, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign Thursday said Mitt Romney is "dishonest" while GOP challenger Mitt Romney's campaign called Obama "lazy." Shrugging off a consensus among political analysts, focus group participants and snap polls that Romney had the better debate performance, Obama told a campaign rally in Denver "the fellow on stage last night" at the presidential candidates' debate was not "the real Mitt Romney" and said "if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth." "The remarkable thing was that the centerpiece of his campaign, and of his economic strategy, he tried to pretend didn't exist last night," David Plouffe, a top Obama campaign official, told reporters Thursday during the daily press briefing. Plouffe said the Obama campaign will adjust to "that dishonesty." "It's hard to remember a time in American politics where you had someone who's a major nominee for the presidency, being that fundamentally dishonest toward parts of his campaign platform," he said. Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, a Romney surrogate, said in an appearance Thursday on MSNBC Obama was lazy. "What people saw last night, I think, was a president that revealed his incompetence, how lazy and detached he is, how he has absolutely no idea how serious the economic problems of the country are, and how he has failed to even begin to address them," Sununu said. During the debate, Romney said Obama champions big government, taxes and regulations with "trickle-down government." Romney said the slow economy proves the Obama administration's policies have failed. He later said, "Are we going to double down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess, or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says, 'America does best when the middle class does best?'" Obama faces re-election amid tepid economic growth and a national unemployment rate of more than 8 percent despite 30 consecutive months of growth in private-sector hiring. "For 18 months he's been running on this tax plan, and now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is 'nevermind,'" Obama said. Obama has proposed raising taxes on income of more than $250,000, combined with spending cuts, to help reduce the deficit. The survey of 430 registered voters had an margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.