WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Speaking to a boisterous crowd at a retirement community here, President Obama played the seasoned campaign veteran, unbowed by his opponent Mitt Romney’s negative ads even as the two trade barbs over each other's records and rhetoric.

“Frankly, I'd be worried if this were my first campaign. But I've been to this rodeo before,” Obama told a crowd of 675 at the Century Village retirement community on Thursday.

He joked that the crowd should just mute the negative TV ads inundating this crucial swing state, and acknowledged that their visual impact wouldn’t be too appealing either. 

“Some of the pictures of me will be unflattering. Now, my face is all distorted, one eye's all droopy,” he said, imitating what some of the images in the ads would look like. “Right? I'm looking all grim,” he continued as the crowd roared with laughter.

The group of seniors and their family members, packed into a low-ceilinged clubhouse, was particularly rowdy, frequently shouting words of encouragement over the president and breaking into chants of “four more years!” whenever he paused.

The president seemed to feed off the crowd, especially after he made his way to the podium having waded through a crowd of senior women who were particularly excited to see him.

“That’s the most kisses I’ve gotten at any campaign event!” he said as he reached the stage.

Later, as an audience member’s phone rang, the president joked that it was his wife Michelle calling because she heard he was getting so much affection at the event. 

Obama tailored his speech to fit this crowd, hitting similar notes as he did earlier at an event in Jacksonville - criticizing Romney’s plans for Medicare (he says Romney’s changes would cost seniors up to $6,400 more) but also appealing to the group’s strong support for Israel.

He condemned the “barbaric” terrorist attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis.

“I know a lot of people in this community care about the state of Israel. And we are heartbroken,” he said of the bombing.

He added that the rapid changes in the Middle East and the bloodshed in Syria meant that “now's the time to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect Israel's security.”

The president continues his campaign swing through Florida Friday with stops in Fort Myers and Orlando.

President Barack Obama wasn't addressing only seniors when he attacked Mitt Romney’s stance on Medicare on Thursday in Florida; he was also focusing on those voters who, he warned, would face a radically different Medicare system if Republican plans were imposed.

At his first event during a two-day trip to Florida, a state where seniors make up 17.3 percent of the population, Obama took aim at Republican proposals to reform Medicare. “Medicare” is a buzzword sure to perk up the ears of the state's retired population, which leans on the program for medical care.

"He plans to turn Medicare into a voucher program. So if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the health insurance that's on the market, you're out of luck. You're on your own," the president said of Romney’s position. "One independent non-partisan study found that seniors would have to pay nearly $6,400 more for Medicare than they do today."

That particular line of attack is directed at middle-aged voters who will be eligible for Medicare in the next couple of decades. Obama also tied Medicare’s solvency to the current debate over the future of the Bush-era tax cuts.

"It's wrong to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare just so millionaires and billionaires can pay less in taxes," he said. "That's not the way to reduce the deficit."

The focus on Medicare is intentional; Democrats enjoyed a degree of political traction when they first targeted the 2011 budget written by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin. In May, the Obama campaign released a web video that claimed Romney would end Medicare in its current form and that a typical 65-year-old woman could be left “with nothing but a voucher to buy insurance coverage, which means $6,350 extra per year for a similar plan.”

That attack was premised on Romney's endorsement of the "Path to Prosperity" authored by Ryan -- who is believed to be on Romney’s shortlist for running mate -- for its proposed changes to Medicare.

At the time, Politifact debunked the claims by the Obama campaign, saying they were based only on Ryan's 2011 proposal, and not the subsequent plan he coauthored with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, one that offers seniors a more traditional Medicare option. And the non-partisan study the president mentioned was the Congressional Budget Office report from April of 2011, which analyzed Ryan’s original budget proposal. 

But the president’s remarks on Medicare do highlight the lack of specifics in Romney’s plan. As long as the presumptive GOP nominee provides only an outline of what he would do to keep the costs of Medicare under control, Obama can continue to campaign on the idea that seniors might very well pay more in the future under a President Romney.

 “Bottom line: There is a clear choice in this election for seniors between President Obama who has been a strong advocate for strengthening Medicare, and Mitt Romney who supports a voucher system that could increase costs," said Obama campaign spokesperson Ben Finkenbinder.

In a statement, Lanhee Chen, Romney's campaign policy director, disagreed, saying that Romney has "a plan to preserve Medicare for today's seniors while strengthening it for future generations." 

Obama, Chen said, would take "hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to spend on Obamacare and will leave seniors with fewer choices."

Expect the Obama to continue hitting Romney on Medicare and taxes later Thursday and Friday as he wraps up his trip to Florida with appearances in West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and Orlando.