Mitt Romney, in an extensive interview with Fox News, pushed back on the idea that ordinary Americans might not relate to him because of his wealth -- citing John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as two presidents who were as popular as they were wealthy.
"This is not a nation that divides people based upon whether they've been successful or not. We don't say, 'oh, boy, this person won the lottery and therefore they can't understand me,'" Romney told Fox News.
"We instead look at people and celebrate their success and their achievement and we look for people who have the skills we think will make our lives better."
Romney, who along with his wife Ann spoke to Fox News shortly before clinching the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night, continued to pitch himself as a job-creating candidate with economic experience.
But he also said he expects "people will get to know me better" as the race goes on.
Ann Romney said her husband is "very private," but that "there are misperceptions out there about how people think they know him."
She described him as "the hardest working person I've ever met besides his father, George Romney, who was a crazy man." She clarified that she meant "crazy good."
Mitt Romney, despite his sterling businessman's resume, said he didn't really see himself as a boss.
"I saw myself as someone that would help organize an extraordinary people," he said.
He also claimed he "wasn't always the highest compensated."
"I was the guy that set the compensation, but I paid other people more than I paid myself because I thought they were doing a better job," he said.
President Obama's campaign has aggressively gone after Romney's experience in the private sector, highlighting cases where companies went under following the involvement of Bain Capital -- the private equity firm Romney once led.
Romney and his supporters say the company had far more successes than failures.