White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday dismissed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s response to the State of the Union as a speech that “could have been delivered by Mitt Romney.”

The White House is eager to frame the president’s progressive, second-term agenda as a continuation of the ideas he espoused on the campaign trail — and GOP opposition to the president’s views as contrary to the will of most voters.

Rubio’s speech was “entirely consistent with the policy ideas that Mitt Romney campaigned on last year and that the American people did not support,” Carney told reporters on Air Force One en route to an Obama stop in Asheville, N.C. to tout his State of the Union proposals.

In his remarks, Rubio argued that Obama’s big-government policies would stifle economic growth rather than strengthen the middle class.

Obama will tout his plan for heightened manufacturing investments with a speech scheduled to start at noon on Wednesday.