Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and multimillionaire businessman, has officially confirmed that he will seek the Republican nomination to take on Barack Obama in next year's White House race.
Romney set up an exploratory committee that will allow him to begin raising campaign funds. The only other official candidate so far is Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota. The former house speaker, Newt Gingrich, is semi-official, unable to set up a full exploratory committee until he has disentangled himself from financial commitments.
Obama announced last week that he will seek a second term.
In a short video, Romney, standing in front of a football field in New Hampshire, which normally holds the first primary, made unemployment his key campaign message.
He said that he had spoken yesterday to many students at the University of New Hampshire who had wondered where the jobs would be when they graduated. He had also been to Nevada, where unemployment is 13%.
"How has this happened in the nation that leads the world in innovation?" he asks. "The answer is that President Obama's policies have failed."
Romney is prepared to spend tens of millions of his own money to become president and will be hoping that his background as a businessman will be an asset at a time when voters are concerned primarily about the economy.
But he is a poor speaker, lacks charisma, and his Mormonism will lose him some voters, especially among Christian evangelists. And while he is a conservative on economic issues, many on the right will not forgive him for setting up a form of healthcare in Massachusetts with echoes of Obama's subsequent healthcare reform.
In 2008, Romney lost out in the early decisive states, beaten in Iowa by Mike Huckabee and in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries by John McCain.