Former N.H. Gov. John Sununu knows how to make news with his comments, though not always constructively. On Tuesday, he got in hot water for saying of Barack Obama on behalf of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, “I wish this President would learn how to be an American.”

Sununu was responding to President Obama having said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Sununu later apologized for his remarks and explained to this newspaper, “I was referring to the fact that in America, entrepreneurs are the ones that create jobs, not the government.”

His point was lost in the controversy, which is never good for a campaign surrogate. Sununu does have a tendency toward inelegance, but who else in Romneyland is applying the heat to Obama as aggressively as Sununu is? No one.

If the Romney campaign had a candidate who would take the fight to Obama every day, it would not need someone like Sununu. On Tuesday, the Romney campaign indicated that the candidate himself intended to be more aggressive. If he wants to win this race, he must be. Team Obama is not playing with kid gloves. If Romney does, he will lose.