Romney's son apologises to Obama over 'swing' remark

Tagg Romney, eldest son of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has apologised to Barack Obama for saying last week that he wanted to "take a swing" at incumbent president for aggressively challenging his father in their second debate.

Tagg apologised to Obama on the stage after the third and final debate in Florida for saying that he wanted to punch the US President for challenging his father, the ABC news reported yesterday.

Obama quickly accepted the apology, the news report said. "The campaign official said that Tagg Romney told the president he was 'just joking' and that Obama accepted the apology," The Washington Post said.

After the second presidential debate on October 16, in which Obama was aggressive against Romney, Tagg had said in a radio interview that he wanted to jump off his seat rush to the stage and take a swing at him.

"But you know you can't do that because, well, first, because there's a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because this is the nature of the process," Tagg told a radio host in North Carolina.

"They are going to do everything they can do to try to make my dad into someone he's not. We signed up for it. We've gotta kinda sit there and take our punches and then send them right back the other way," he said.