MINNEAPOLIS--Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ran into a wall of criticism on Wednesday for remarks suggesting he was indifferent to America's poor, after scoring a resounding victory in the Florida primary.

The wealthy ex-governor of Massachusetts and former private equity executive gave a clumsy reminder while speaking to CNN of the challenges he faces winning over voters struggling with the economic downturn and high unemployment. In an interview on the morning after he trounced rival Newt Gingrich in Florida, Romney said he was not concerned about the poorest or richest Americans and his primary focus was on the middle class.

"I'm not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there," he said, adding, "If it needs repair, I'll fix it."

While he was making a point also made by President Barack Obama about the need to shore up the American middle class, Romney's language fed perceptions that he is out of touch with ordinary people. "You can choose where to focus, you can focus on the rich, that's not my focus. You can focus on the very poor, that's not my focus. My focus is on middle income Americans, retirees living on Social Security, people who can't find work," Romney said.

Obama's campaign seized on the remarks. Jim Messina, Obama's campaign director, said, "So much for 'we're all in this together.' Romney today: 'I'm not concerned about the very poor,'" in a message on Twitter.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse promptly emailed Romney's comments to journalists, with the introduction, "I'm glad he cleared that up."

The fuss took the shine off Romney's triumph in Florida, where he captured 46 percent of the vote to Gingrich's 32 percent after pounding his nearest rival with negative advertisements. The victory restored him to front-runner status in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to run against Obama, a Democrat, in the Nov. 6 general election.

Romney said his comments had been taken out of context and that his message was that his energy would be devoted to helping middle income people. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I - no no. You've got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different," Romney told reporters as he flew to Minneapolis.