The US presidential hopefuls traded accusations on Wednesday, in which the Republican Mitt Romney said the now President Barack Obama’s campaign was “all about hatred”.

The US presidential hopefuls traded accusations on Wednesday, in which the Republican Mitt Romney said the now President Barack Obama’s campaign was “all about hatred”.

Romney, hoping to turn Democrat Obama out of the White House after a single term, said that Obama and backers were stoking divides based on income, age and ethnicity, to whip up a sense of "enmity and jealousy and anger."

"The president's campaign is all about division and attack and hatred," Mitt Romney told CBS. "My campaign is about getting America back to work and creating greater unity in this country," Romney told CBS News.

"The president seems to be running just to hang onto power -- I think he'll do anything in his power to try to get reelected," he said.

For his part, Obama aide responded to the outburst, apparently a bid to dent the president's high character ratings, by affecting bemusement, and pointing out that Romney won the Republican nomination partly through a negative ad onslaught.

"Hope it's not hateful to say that Mitt's budget math doesn't add up," said Obama senior advisor David Axelrod on Twitter.