Mitt Romney. Photo: Gage Skidmore.

Politico – It’s really, truly over.

With President Obama’s frontal assault on Mitt Romney and the Republican front-runner’s harsh language about the incumbent and convincing triple victory Tuesday, the general election effectively began this week.

It’s a new season, one in which the president attacks his likely GOP opponent by name in TV ads and on the stump and the all-but-certain Republican nominee blithely ignores his intraparty rivals so as not to distract from his mocking rhetoric about Obama. The calendar may say April, but with Obama tweaking Romney as a stuffy rich guy for saying “marvelous” and Romney hammering Obama as a detached megalomaniac “surrounded by an adoring staff of true believers,” the rhetoric has reached October-like levels.