Romney-Ryan ticket under attack from Democrats
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (AP/UNB) - President Barack Obama's re-election machine is trying to ruin any political honeymoon Republican challenger Mitt Romney sought to engineer by naming Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.
The president and Vice President Joe Biden are slamming Romney as a supporter of the newly chosen Ryan's budget plans that would overhaul the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and cut trillions of dollars from other social programs.
The debate will take place across five battleground states Tuesday, as both campaigns operate at full speed heading into their politically important nominating conventions with less than three months before the election.
The tight race is dominated by a weak economic recovery and a national jobless rate of 8.3 percent. Polls taken before Romney added Ryan to his ticket over the weekend showed Obama with a slender lead in a contest that will be decided in eight to 10 battleground states.
Romney will spend the day in Ohio on the final day of a bus tour. Ryan will be in Colorado and Nevada after being heckled by a handful of people on his first solo campaign outing Monday in Iowa.
Obama is also in Iowa on the second of three days there, while Biden, who opened a strong attack on the Republican ticket a day earlier, will campaign in rural Virginia.
All four candidates are in so-called swing states, which do not reliably vote for one party or the other in presidential elections. The presidency is not decided in the national popular vote but in state-by-state contests.
Romney quickly found himself fighting off attacks on Ryan's budget plans and praising his running mate's work as necessary to protect the long-term survival of Medicare.
Ryan has "come up with ideas that are very different than the president's," Romney said in Florida, the state with the highest percentage of residents age 65 and over. "The president's idea for Medicare was to cut it by $700 billion. That's not the right answer. We want to make sure that we preserve and protect Medicare."
Romney did not say so, but the plans Ryan produced in the past two years as chairman of the House Budget Committee retain the $700 billion in Medicare cuts. Romney said there may be differences between his own budget plan and Ryan's, but he refused to get into details. Romney's staff said the former Massachusetts governor favored a plan to restore the $700 billion.
Romney on Tuesday will try to change the subject and address what he is calling the Obama administration's "war on coal," according to his campaign. Ryan plans to promote Romney's "all-of-the-above" energy approach in Colorado.
Obama, meanwhile, is expected to call on Congress to extend expiring tax credits for wind energy production. The White House on Tuesday pointed to a new Energy Department report saying wind power installations "surged" in 2011 but warning that uncertainty over extending the wind energy tax credits threatens to "dramatically slow" the industry.
The annual report emerged as Obama was campaigning in Iowa, a state that is among the leaders in wind power. The report estimated 75,000 U.S. jobs now depend on wind power. Of those, state officials say, 7,000 are in Iowa.
Romney has opposed extending the alternative energy credits, but several powerful Iowa Republicans, including the governor and a senator, favor the credits. That may give Obama the chance to create a local wedge issue to appeal to unaligned voters.
The president and Vice President Joe Biden are slamming Romney as a supporter of the newly chosen Ryan's budget plans that would overhaul the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and cut trillions of dollars from other social programs.
The debate will take place across five battleground states Tuesday, as both campaigns operate at full speed heading into their politically important nominating conventions with less than three months before the election.
The tight race is dominated by a weak economic recovery and a national jobless rate of 8.3 percent. Polls taken before Romney added Ryan to his ticket over the weekend showed Obama with a slender lead in a contest that will be decided in eight to 10 battleground states.
Romney will spend the day in Ohio on the final day of a bus tour. Ryan will be in Colorado and Nevada after being heckled by a handful of people on his first solo campaign outing Monday in Iowa.
Obama is also in Iowa on the second of three days there, while Biden, who opened a strong attack on the Republican ticket a day earlier, will campaign in rural Virginia.
All four candidates are in so-called swing states, which do not reliably vote for one party or the other in presidential elections. The presidency is not decided in the national popular vote but in state-by-state contests.
Romney quickly found himself fighting off attacks on Ryan's budget plans and praising his running mate's work as necessary to protect the long-term survival of Medicare.
Ryan has "come up with ideas that are very different than the president's," Romney said in Florida, the state with the highest percentage of residents age 65 and over. "The president's idea for Medicare was to cut it by $700 billion. That's not the right answer. We want to make sure that we preserve and protect Medicare."
Romney did not say so, but the plans Ryan produced in the past two years as chairman of the House Budget Committee retain the $700 billion in Medicare cuts. Romney said there may be differences between his own budget plan and Ryan's, but he refused to get into details. Romney's staff said the former Massachusetts governor favored a plan to restore the $700 billion.
Romney on Tuesday will try to change the subject and address what he is calling the Obama administration's "war on coal," according to his campaign. Ryan plans to promote Romney's "all-of-the-above" energy approach in Colorado.
Obama, meanwhile, is expected to call on Congress to extend expiring tax credits for wind energy production. The White House on Tuesday pointed to a new Energy Department report saying wind power installations "surged" in 2011 but warning that uncertainty over extending the wind energy tax credits threatens to "dramatically slow" the industry.
The annual report emerged as Obama was campaigning in Iowa, a state that is among the leaders in wind power. The report estimated 75,000 U.S. jobs now depend on wind power. Of those, state officials say, 7,000 are in Iowa.
Romney has opposed extending the alternative energy credits, but several powerful Iowa Republicans, including the governor and a senator, favor the credits. That may give Obama the chance to create a local wedge issue to appeal to unaligned voters.
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