MANCHESTER, NH -- Confirming that he will not be traveling to Virginia tomorrow for Mitt Romney's formal announcement of a running mate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said late Friday night that he is "not disappointed" about not being on the GOP ticket.

Related: NBC: 3 sources indicate Romney will pick Ryan

"I didn't enter this thinking I was going to be the vice presidential candidate, so I'm not disappointed," Pawlenty said of his advocacy for Romney since endorsing him last year. "And I'm excited about his candidacy, and I'm excited about having him be the next president."

Pawlenty has four public events in New Hampshire tomorrow, a busy schedule which he said he will keep despite Romney's event to announce his running mate in Norfolk, VA.

"I am keeping my schedule in New Hampshire tomorrow, won't be at the announcement," he told reporters outside a hotel here in Manchester. "So you can deduce from there that since I'm keeping my schedule in New Hampshire, I can't also be in Virginia at the same time."

NBC News reports that three sources close to the Romney campaign have indicated that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the GOP nominee's selection.  Pawlenty would not confirm that but said that he is "excited" about Romney's choice, adding that he did know who the pick would be but could not reveal it.

"I can't say any more," he said. "We gotta now wait for Gov. Romney to make the announcement as to who his VP pick is and I'm sure it will be a great pick."

The former Minnesota governor, who was considered to be in the final three possible contenders for the VP slot, said that he did not receive a telephone call from Romney tonight but that he has spoken "regularly" with the nominee.

Recommended: Paul Ryan's strengths and weaknesses

Pawlenty has long been named as one of Romney's most loyal surrogates, making frequent television appearances and traveling the country on his behalf.

"This doesn't affect my attitude towards wanting him to be president," Pawlenty said Friday night. "I'm going to continue to work really hard to help him"

NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that Romney's son Tagg had informed some of the also-rans that they would not be chosen for the job. The younger Romney was present at two fundraisers headlined by Pawlenty in New Hampshire Friday evening.

If you're already not familiar with the term, you'll certainly hear it over the next three months -- the Ryan budget.

What is it?

It substantially restructures Medicare; cuts Medicaid, food stamps, and transportation infrastructure; and it reduces the top tax rate from 35% to 25%. Regarding Medicare, the 2011 version of the Ryan budget would transform it from a government-run program to one where future seniors receive a voucher or premium support to purchase health insurance from private insurers. The Congressional Budget Office said the plan would force most seniors to pay more for their health care  than under the current Medicare system. The latest version, however, would give future seniors the choice of purchasing private insurance or through Medicare's traditional fee-for-service model, and it received the backing of at least one Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Ryan and his allies say a bold plan - reforming entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid - and slashing discretionary spending is needed to reduce the deficit and debt. But critics argue that the pain comes primarily from the poor and middle class. An analysis from the liberal-leaning Center on Budget Policies and Priorities says that 62% of the spending cuts in the Ryan budget would come from low-income programs, while 37% of its tax benefits would go to those making more than $1 million per year.

With all signs pointing to Mitt Romney selecting Paul Ryan as his VP running mate tomorrow in Norfolk, VA, Romney went bold. And here is First Read's looks at the strengths and weaknesses Ryan would bring the GOP presidential ticket.

Strengths:

• As chairman of the House Budget Committee, the 42-year-old Ryan is a young rising star in the GOP, and has become their chief spokesman when it comes to reducing the deficit and debt.
• Romney picking Ryan as his running mate would signal that he’s doubling down on an austerity/deficit-reduction message. Indeed, while the Obama campaign and Democrats could point to visible improvements with the economy over the past three years (a lower unemployment rate, stronger GDP growth), there hasn’t been much progress in reducing the deficit. The deficit was $1.4 trillion in FY ’09; $1.3 trillion in ’10; $1.5 trillion in ’11 (projected); and $1.1 trillion in ’12 (projected).
• Ryan hails from a battleground state -- Wisconsin -- where polls show Romney currently trailing Obama. Obama actually won Ryan’s district in 2008, 51%-47%.
• Comfort level: When Romney campaigned with Ryan in the lead-up to the April 3 Wisconsin primary, the two men demonstrated a rapport that we haven’t seen with other Romney surrogates.
• He would be a person who could please both the conservative intelligentsia and the Tea Party base.

Weaknesses:

• Ryan’s budget plan has become a lightning rod, and it will be a focus of Democratic attacks in the fall. The most controversial component of the plan is that it significantly transforms Medicare, which is regarded as the government’s most popular program.
• In addition to Medicare, Ryan was one of the driving forces to partially privatize Social Security after George W. Bush’s victory in the 2004 presidential election.
• There are also holes in Ryan’s budget-hawk armor: He voted for some of the biggest drivers of the deficit/debt -- the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, all of which weren’t paid for. Moreover, Ryan voted against the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations.
• Has never held statewide office and has no foreign-policy experience. Both could be liabilities.
• As a member of Congress, Ryan currently works in -- and is a relatively high-profile member of -- one of America’s least popular institutions.
• And while Romney has criticized Obama for not having private-sector experience, the same is largely true of Ryan: As the New Yorker has written, Ryan briefly worked for his family’s business as a “marketing consultant,” but most of his adult life has been spent as a congressman, congressional aide, or speechwriter/analyst at Jack Kemp’s Empower America think tank.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 10, 2012.

Mitt Romney's campaign has announced that the presumptive GOP nominee has chosen House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate.  The two candidates will appear together at a campaign event in Norfolk, Va., Saturday morning.

The official announcement will be in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin -- which just happens to be Ryan's home state.

After three sources close to the Romney campaign indicated to NBC News late Friday night that Ryan would be the pick, the Romney camp issued a press release just after 7:00 am ET, stating: “Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan: America’s Comeback Team.” Around the same time, the campaign’s “VP app” also announced that Ryan would be the choice.

The Romney campaign billed the ticket "America's comeback team" in the release announcing the decision, saying that Ryan "has worked tirelessly leading the effort to reign in federal spending and increase accountability to taxpayers."

With recent national polls showing Romney trailing President Barack Obama, Ryan is a bold pick. He will excite economic conservatives, and is considered one of his party's rising stars.

Related: Paul Ryan's strengths and weaknesses

But his budget plan -- which would substantially transform Medicare and Medicaid -- is a lightning rod. In fact, Democrats argue that Ryan's selection marks an opportunity to highlight Ryan's desired changes to Medicare, which include giving future seniors a voucher or premium support to help pay for their health insurance. Under Ryan's plan, future seniors would have the choice of using the voucher/premium support to purchase private insurance or through Medicare's traditional fee-for-service model.

Recommended: Pawlenty: 'I'm not disappointed'

"We've spent 18 months trying to make House races about their plan for Medicare and Mitt Romney just did it for us overnight," said one Democratic operative.

Ryan had been the focus of intense VP speculation for the last few days. Washington economic conservatives -- including the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard -- have pushed for his selection.

Related: What is the Ryan budget?

In addition, Romney told NBC's Chuck Todd on Thursday he was looking for someone with "a vision for the country," who "adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country”  -- a sign that he might make a bold pick in Ryan.

At 11:11 pm ET, the Romney campaign announced that it would be making its VP selection on Saturday. And as First Read reported earlier this week, the VP finalists were Ryan, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman.

NBCNews.com's Mike O'Brien contributed to this report.

Deflecting continued questions about a controversial ad from a Democratic-aligned super PAC, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted Friday that a candidates’ campaign is powerless over third-party ads.

But he took the opposite view in May when he urged Mitt Romney’s campaign to renounce a Republican donor who had considered running ads on the president’s ties to the controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright.

During Friday’s White House briefing Carney was asked whether the president agrees with an ad by pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA, run by former White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, which links the shuttering of GST Steelworks, a company bought by Romney’s private equity group Bain Capital, with the death of a former GST employee’s wife six years later.

As he and campaign spokespeople have in the past few days, Carney maintained that the Obama camp has no say over outside groups’ ads.

“We do not control third-party ads,” Carney said, adding later, “I do not have any role in third-party groups that produce these ads.”

But Carney held a different view on campaigns’ responsibilities to mediate outside groups when, in May, Republican bundler Joe Ricketts was revealed to have considered investing in ads highlighting then-Sen. Obama’s ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his fiery former pastor.

In a briefing on May 17^th, Carney suggested the Romney campaign should denounce the potential ad campaign, drafted by Republican consultant Fred Davis, but never actually implemented.

“And I think there are moments when you have to stand up and say that that's not the right way to go. And I would point to numerous comments that echo that, not just from Democrats and political observers, but by Republicans today,” he said of Davis’ proposal.

The Romney campaign continued its effort today to paint President Obama as someone who cannot to be trusted, who will "say or do anything" to be elected.

The latest salvo came in a TV ad, attempting to tie Obama to a separate controversial outside group’s ad.

The Romney ad, which questions Obama’s “character,” hinges on the claim that "his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain."  

The ad in question, which has not actually aired anywhere, features a man named Joe Soptic, who blames Romney for the loss of his job and his health care, and leaves the impression that those factors contributed to his wife’s death from cancer.

"What does it say about a president’s character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain?" an announcer charges in an ad released today by the Romney campaign that it says will be running on air. It declined to say in which states, but it rarely shares ad-buy information.

"What does it say about a president's character when he had his campaign raise money for the ad, then stood by, as his top aides were caught lying about it," the ad continues. "Doesn't America deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power?" Then the standard kicker: "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message."

First, it should be pointed out that the ad in question has been widely discredited, called out of bounds, crossing a line, misleading, and more. 

Second, the ad the Romney campaign references is run by Priorities USA, an outside group -- not the Obama campaign.

Yes, the lines between the campaign and this outside group are blurry. Soptic has previously appeared in an Obama campaign ad.

Further, Obama campaign officials denied having any knowledge of the story of Soptic’s wife -- despite the fact that Soptic had told the story on an Obama campaign conference call. In addition, Priorities USA is run by a former Obama White House official and 2008 campaign spokesman.

As we pointed out this morning in First Thoughts, the Obama campaign would probably demand an apology from Romney for a similar ad.

In fact, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney decried an outside group that was considering running an ad campaign that would have invoked Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor.

"I think there are moments when you have to stand up and say that that's not the right way to go," Carney said back in May. 

For the record, Romney did. “I want to make it very clear, I repudiate that effort,” Romney said at the time. “I think it’s the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign.”

All that's true. But this ad doesn't call for Obama to denounce the Priorities ad; it attempts to tie him to it. To this point, there has been no evidence Obama or the Obama campaign directed Priorities to run the ad.

The Romney ad also claims Obama "had his campaign raise money for the ad." 

That's a stretch. Yes, Obama has encouraged donors to give money to Priorities, but there's no evidence he asked them specifically to raise money for this ad.

The ad then says, "...his top aides were caught lying about it." That assumes the premise that aides were raising money specifically for the ad. But there’s no evidence of that, either. 

If there was a "caught lying," it wasn't about raising money, it was about a campaign official not knowing Soptic's story. There is evidence that the campaign did have knowledge of the story, because of the campaign conference call he participated in.

The ad also then makes the jump that the president will "say or do anything," when, in this case, part of the problem -- perception-wise for Obama -- is that he hasn't said or done anything at all.

He hasn't denounced the ad, and there's no evidence that he told anyone to run this or that he thinks running it is a good idea or in bounds – though Republicans would say since he hasn’t denounced it, it’s a silent endorsement. And there will likely continue to be pressure on him and his team to denounce it.

As far as coordination, since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, both campaigns are walking in the mud.

While there are ample connections between the Obama White House, campaign, and Priorities USA, there are at least as many between Romney, Restore Our Future, and Crossroads, including top strategists who worked for Romney in the past as well as others who were invited to his Utah retreat for a political briefing.

It's also ironic that the Romney campaign is crying foul on coordination, considering the connections, but also because when this ad hit this reporter's inbox -- at 12:49 pm ET -- it was just 12 minutes after a video slamming Obama on the same subject produced by American Crossroads (below). The Crossroads ad even uses Richard Nixon-era White House counsel John Dean telling Nixon, "There's a cancer within-- close to the presidency that's growing. It's growing daily."

On the campaign trail in Colorado Thursday President Obama assailed Mitt Romney for opposing the tax break for wind energy production, saying the presumptive nominee would put tens of thousands of jobs at risk by letting them expire.

“At a moment when homegrown energy, renewable energy, is creating new jobs in states like Colorado and Iowa, my opponent wants to end tax credits for wind energy producers,” Obama said.

“Think about what that would mean for a community like Pueblo. The wind industry supports about 5,000 jobs across this state. Without those tax credits, 37,000 American jobs, including potentially hundreds of jobs right here, would be at risk.”

Recommended: Finger in the wind: Obama pushes Romney's opposition to tax credit

Wind energy now supplies about 4 percent of U.S. electricity, up from 1.3 percent in 2008.

A spokesman for Romney's Iowa campaign said last week that Romney “will allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles, and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits."

Romney’s stance on the wind energy tax break puts him at odds with Republican senators such as Jerry Moran of Kansas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. It was Grassley who pushed for the wind tax credit when it was created in 1992.

But Romney won applause from one GOP House member, Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who has proposed a bill to abolish all energy tax breaks. “The Solyndra scandal has demonstrated that taxpayers must no longer be forced to subsidize these industries,” Pompeo said last week. “When the government bets on these energy technologies, it typically selects the most unaffordable energy leading to unnecessarily higher energy prices for all Americans.”

Solyndra, a California solar-panel manufacturing firm that got a $535 million federal loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy last year. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has acknowledged that the $535 million isn’t likely to be recovered.

Beyond the campaign rhetoric and the question of whether Romney’s anti-wind tax credit stance will hurt him in two wind-energy loving battleground states (Colorado and Iowa), there’s a serious economic debate here.

It hinges on the classic question: what activities and industries, if any, should the government require taxpayers to subsidize? Is it ever possible to have a “level playing field” so that consumers can choose the energy source that’s most cost effective?

And when Congress creates and preserves tax breaks for favored industries, does it also perpetuate the entrenched culture of lobbyists and special interests seeking favors from Congress?

In this case, every few years the wind energy industry and its lobbyists must urge Congress to give the tax break another lease on life before it expires. Lobbyist filings show that the American Wind Energy Association spent $1.1 million in the first half of this year on lobbying Congress.

Related: GOP wields report on Solyndra as cudgel against Obama

The group has hired lobbyists such as Juleanna Glover of the Ashcroft Group, former Louisiana Republican Rep. Jim McCrery of Capitol Counsel, and Elmendorf Ryan’s Steve Elmendorf, an aide to Dick Gephardt when he was House Democratic leader.

A pragmatist would say there’s nothing new here: the wind industry is just getting in on a subsidy game that other energy industries have played for decades.

As a Congressional Budget Office report noted in March, “Tax preferences for energy were first established in 1916, and until 2005 they were primarily intended to stimulate domestic production of oil and natural gas. Beginning in 2006, the cost of energy-related tax preferences grew substantially, and an increasing share was aimed at encouraging energy efficiency and energy produced from renewable sources, such as wind and the sun….”

That CBO report said energy-related tax breaks cost $20 billion in 2011 and 68 percent of them went to renewable energy, while only 15 percent went to fossil fuels.

Under current law, for a wind facility that starts operating by the end of this year, the owners can claim a 2.2 cent tax credit for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced. The tax credit is good for a 10-year period.

In a bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee last week, the wind production tax credit was extended through 2013 but it was also modified in a significant way, said energy industry consultant and blogger Geoffrey Styles.

The Finance Committee bill would make wind energy facilities eligible for the tax preference if the construction of such facilities or property begins before Jan. 1, 2014. “This will sweep in many more projects,” said Styles. “It has the effect of being much more than a one-year extension” since as long as a project gets started – not completed -- before Jan. 1, 2014, it would be eligible for the tax break.

According to the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the proposal would cost $12 billion in lost revenue over ten years.

Energy economist William Pizer, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the Treasury Department from 2008 to 2011 and now teaches at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, said the tax break is less than ideal energy policy for a variety of reasons.

One is the inefficiency of a subsidy compared to higher tax on more polluting energy sources such as coal and oil. And he said frequently some of the benefit of the tax-break flows to “tax equity partners” who are brought in to join with the actual wind energy project company.

And noting that the wind energy credit has expired three times since 1992 (with Congress ultimately reviving it each time), he said, “The boom-and-bust cycle has been problematic for the industry.”

Recommended: Tension between Romney and conservative stalwarts resurfaces

When analysts at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington looked at the wind and other renewable energy tax breaks that were part of the 2009 stimulus bill, they said, “In general, these subsidies are less cost-effective than price increases” which Congress could impose through higher taxes on fuels such as coal.

The Tax Policy Center added that, “Such subsidies are very hard to remove once they have outlived their usefulness, since they develop powerful constituencies.”

In a blog post last week, Styles noted that during the 20 years in which the renewable energy production tax credit “has been escalating annually with inflation -- from 1.5¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to the present level of 2.2 ¢/kWh -- the cost of wind turbines and (the cost of) their output has fallen significantly.” During that same period, wind energy capacity in the United States grew by 30 times.

So, Styles said, “in effect, we're subsidizing today's relatively mature onshore wind technology by a larger proportion than we did when it was in its infancy. That makes no sense, especially in the current environment.”

One factor which might call into question the competitiveness of wind energy in the marketplace is the new abundance of domestically produced natural gas in the United States.

But Ellen Carey, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association said, “One of the reasons the U.S. is able to enjoy this new abundant source of low priced natural gas was the multi-decade government support of the Section 29 production tax credit for unconventional gas. The production tax credit for wind energy ensures we build a diverse and stable portfolio of energy and do not over rely on a single energy source which exposes us to potential volatility.”

BOSTON -- Top aides to the GOP's presumptive nominee Mitt Romney were at a loss today to explain the candidate's recent slide in a series of national polls which show Romney dropping anywhere from seven to nine points behind the president as the nominating conventions approach at the end of this month.

"It’s the middle of summer. It’s the doldrums. It’s the middle of the Olympics,” a senior Romney adviser told reporters gathered for a briefing at the campaign's Boston headquarters. “There's not been any national news, anything that would push these numbers from minus-three to minus-nine points. That's a huge shift. You have to have some kind of precipitating event to move numbers like that."

As we noted this morning, three national polls released late this week -- from CNN, Fox and Reuters/Ipsos -- all show Romney slipping out of the margin of error nationally in his effort to unseat the president.

With reporters gathered to learn more about Romney's swing-state bus tour this weekend, a top adviser dismissed the slip in polling as a function of voters simply not paying full attention to the race yet, and predicted polls next week could just as easily show the GOP nominee-in-waiting tightening up the race, but couldn't identify any event that could have caused a real shift in voter sentiment, dismissing even the impact of the candidate's recent foreign trip as "negligible."

The shift also comes as a barrage of swing-state TV ads have hammered Romney on taxes and his business record. Romney, of course, is also on the air with his campaign and outside groups supporting him maintaining a 2-to-1 spending advantage over President Obama and his allies.

"Mark my word guys, there will be another couple of polls next week that show something, potentially show something different,” said the senior adviser. “I don't know. It’s just-- it’s unlikely that--. People are not paying as much attention to this process as we think they are, as we'd like them to.”

Advisers to Romney also used this morning's gathering of reporters as an opportunity to hit back against a recent ad from the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA, which indirectly ties Romney to the cancer death of the wife of a steelworker laid off when Bain Capital acquired his business.

"I don't think a world champion limbo dancer could get any lower than the Obama campaign right now," said senior adviser Eric Fehnrstrom, who made no distinction between the Obama campaign and the Super PAC supporting the president, which aired the ad. "Obama said he would change the tone in Washington, and he has done that. He's taken it from bad to worse."

Fehrnstrom said later, "When you start running ads accusing your opponent of killing people, then you have lost credibility.”

The Obama campaign's Lis Smith responded this way: “The Romney campaign’s faux outrage over an ad run by an outside group separate from our campaign rings extremely hollow. Mitt Romney won the Republican primary only by tearing down each of his opponents with ruthlessly negative campaigning, including ads funded by outside allies. His campaign has questioned whether the President understands what it is to be American, attacked his patriotism, and is currently running an ad that a former president and authors of the welfare-to-work legislation have called a flat-out lie.  When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there.” 

Blurring the lines between campaigns and PACs also carries risk for Romney, as several Super PACs are airing negative ads on his behalf. The Romney campaign has also come under fire for taking issues and statements by the president out of context (albeit all issue-related) in their own ads.

"This is what campaigns are about. We go back and forth over the issues," said Fehrnstrom, who also dismissed a question suggesting that multiple Romney ads had been inaccurate. 

Tomorrow, Romney will begin a four-state bus tour to tout his “plan for the middle class,” with stops in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio.

The Romney campaign sees the tour a "blue-states" bus tour, pointing out that all four states, while vital to Romney this go-round, were won by President Obama in 2008.

Of course, those states were all also won by former President George W. Bush, a Republican in 2004, and Obama was the first Democrat since 1964 to win Virginia and the first since 1976 to win North Carolina.

A senior adviser said polling data shows the president's support slipping from 2008 levels in all four states. That may be, but Obama won in an electoral landslide in 2008.

"These are all tight states, on the bubble, within the margin of error," the adviser said. All four are widely considered to be toss-up states.

For Romney to truly cut through the siege of political ads in all four states, the campaign may need to hold out until the Republican convention in late August, where a senior adviser said challengers typically get a bounce that is several points larger than the incumbent, and after which point voters begin to pay closer attention.

Asked about timing of a possible vice-presidential announcement to further that bounce, aides demurred, saying history showed that the vice-presidential bounce and the convention bounce tend to be one in the same, and so there was no way to predict the effect of an early vice presidential announcement. That’s because, outside of 2004, the vice-presidential pick is generally made within a week of the convention.

Things have changed. It’s not an even race right now -- Obama’s ahead … Does Romney go bolder in his veep pick because of it? … Speaking of bolder, was he hinting at picking someone like Paul Ryan yesterday in his interview with NBC with talk of “vision” and adding to the “political discourse about the direction of the country?” … Romney’s pledge to stay away from personal attacks … The flap over the out-of-bounds Priorities ad carries risk for Obama’s image. … Obama campaign pushes back against the dubious Romney welfare ad with an ad … GOP conservative concern is growing … And more evidence Romney makes his VP pick AFTER the bus tour.

Jack Dempsey / AP

President Barack Obama talks to supporters during a campaign rally at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, Aug, 9, 2012.

*** It’s not an even race – Obama’s ahead: The Olympics are wrapping up and, at the end of July, when the Olympics began, we wrote that we were basically at halftime of the general election -- and Obama had a narrow lead. Well, it’s a little bigger than that now. (People may want to quibble, but you can’t dismiss every poll on sampling.) There’s clearly movement toward the president and clearly problems for Romney personally. We had found it in our polling for the last month and it hadn’t shown up everywhere yet. Now it has. The latest evidence: three new polls out today – from CNN, Fox, and Reuters/Ipsos – all showing President Obama leading Romney by seven points or more and at or near 50%. (CNN 52-45%, Fox 49-40%, Reuters/Ipsos 49-42%). What’s more, Romney continues to have an image problem. In CNN, Obama’s fav/unfav is +14, Romney’s -1. And in Fox, Obama’s +12, Romney’s +1. (Ipsos didn’t ask fav/unfav.) 

*** Raising the stakes: What does this mean aside from how the playing field has shifted in the last two weeks? All this raises the stakes for Romney’s VP pick and convention. We’ve said August is important for Romney to make a move, and that’s even truer now. He enters what could be the final week of VP speculation. We’re in any-day mode with his running mate selection. And he’s at a point where the running-mate selection, which will change the subject from whatever’s being talked about, is going to be made when Romney’s behind, making it more defining than perhaps he ever wanted it to be. The conventional wisdom had been that Romney was going to be picking a running mate in a coin-flip race. Well that’s not the case now. How does that change his mind? Does it help Paul Ryan? Does Romney go outside the short list and go somewhere else (Rubio, Christie?). The bottom line is in just three weeks, he was going to be picking his running mate from a position of strength (and perhaps that favored a guy like Tim Pawlenty, meaning he could pick a partner and a friend). Now, he’s picking one from a position of weakness.

*** Romney hinting at Ryan? Mitt Romney, in his interview yesterday with one of us, said he wants someone with “a vision for the country that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country. I mean, I happen to believe this is a defining election for America that we're going to be voting for what kind of America we're going to have.” He added: “[T]his is a campaign of a big choice.” Well, who does that sound like? That probably brought a smile to the face of Paul Gigot. He would argue in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that no one represents a clearer “vision for the country” or “adds to the political discourse” more than Paul Ryan. How would Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty fit into that mold aside from simply being on Team Romney? Romney seemed to say: I do want to say something with my pick. I want to make a distinction. Of course, throughout the entire GOP presidential primary, candidates were saying this was the most important election of our lifetimes. And President Obama has certainly talked about the stark choice this election represents. But this was the strongest hint yet at Romney's thinking.

*** This is business not personal: Romney also said in the interview he would like a pledge (of sorts) with Obama that there be no “personal” attack ads. “[O]ur campaign would be-- helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon-- business or family or taxes or things of that nature.” (Question: Is Romney really saying that scrutinizing his business record -- which he has held up as one of his chief qualifications to be president -- is personal? But we digress...) He continued: “[W]e only talk about issues. And we can talk about the differences between our positions and our opponent's position.” Romney said of his own campaign: “[O]ur ads haven't gone after the president personally. … [W]e haven't dredged up the old stuff that people talked about last time around. We haven't gone after the personal things.” That doesn’t mean surrogates or Super PACs have, as was brought up to him. Bottom line, obviously, this negative stuff is getting to Romney or he wouldn’t have said this. Campaigns that are winning never complain about the tone of the campaign (although Obama certainly laments “crazy” things outside groups say – more on that below.). There will be more on this from Romney on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown. Did he just offer the Obama campaign an official pledge? See for yourself.

*** Reset your Priorities: Speaking of “crazy” things outside groups come up with. The Romney campaign and RNC have done a good job pushing and highlighting the Priorities ad, which goes too far. The Chicago Tribune today says Obama should denounce the ad: “Mr. President, lift the campaign. Call this ad what it is: a disgrace.” This ad clearly highlights the continued blurring of the lines between campaigns and the outside groups that support them. And the Obama campaign gave the Romney folks and RNC an opening when it denied knowing the man’s story in the ad (they shifted on that yesterday a bit.) The man had appeared in an Obama campaign ad previously and was on a campaign conference call touting his story – all dug up and pushed by Romney/RNC. (Although there’s no proof that the Obama campaign explicitly coordinated and told Priorities to run this ad.) If the shoe was on the other foot, you’d expect the Obama people would ask for Romney to denounce it. Why’s the GOP pushing this story so hard? Because one of Obama’s great strengths is that he’s perceived by the public not as a generic, cynical politician, and if some of that luster can rub off, it helps Romney. Obama has a positive “brand,” and he still has more to lose if this becomes a total mud fest than Romney if he’s not careful.

*** Pushback: By the way, it’s worth noting that the Priorities ad still hasn’t actually aired anywhere (except in free cable chatter.) The Romney welfare ad, on the other hand, IS running – and it’s why the Obama campaign is responding in kind with an ad of its own – this one called “Blatant,” which notes the fact checks calling the ad “blatantly false” and misleading. There are two ways campaigns respond to negative attacks – (1) via press release if the ad’s not actually airing (which is what the Romney camp and RNC are doing), and (2) Go on air with an ad in defense (which is what Obama’s doing). By the way, with Romney yesterday saying on Bill Bennett’s radio show that there was a time when campaigns used to feel guilted into pulling ads deemed to be false, does that mean he’ll be pulling the welfare ad?

*** GOP conservative concern is growing: Yesterday, we noted how conservative activists reacted to a comment from a Romney spokesperson on health care. Well, they’re also voicing complaints – in blind quotes -- about Romney’s transition team, reports The Washington Post’s Rubin. They’re upset with the addition of former World Bank president and U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick to the transition team to deal with national security. They accuse Zoellick of promoting “multilateral mush.” Later in the day, on a separate point, John Podhoretz tweeted: “So every day Romney is not talking about the economy is a day lost, campaign says. Are they talking about the economy? No. Thus, the problem.” Rubin wrote that this week “was a lesson that the campaign dare not be oblivious to deep-seated grievances and sensitivities from conservative foot soldiers.” It’s another example of the base’s wariness of Romney and the gap of trust that exists. This is a problem for Romney. How will Romney lead his party if they don’t trust him? His base just isn't allowing him much room – and by comparison, Obama was able to tack to the middle on free trade and even Iraq a bit during the 2008 general. By the way, doesn’t this problem make Ryan one of the “safer” picks for Romney?
 
*** What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Podhoretz hits on this point -- that the Romney campaign message isn’t quite coming in crystal clear. It was SUPPOSED to be hyper-focused on the economy, remember? But he got hit hard for his tax plan that left a lot of specifics out. He also lamented overseas that he wasn’t being asked about “substance.” So what has the Team Romney message been this past week? Welfare, Israel, negative Super PAC ads and Lech Walesa and the Pope. They've been all over the place. Either they are trying to throw the kitchen sink at Obama -- now. Or they realize they have to do more than just the economy. Or they are trying to hold the ball out to drive daily news cycles until the veep is picked and the convention, which will take the narrative away from Bain or taxes or anything else negative about Romney (like this Bloomberg story about Romney’s time as the head of Marriott’s audit committee, in which “during Romney’s tenure as a Marriott director, the company repeatedly utilized complex tax-avoidance maneuvers….”). Or a combination of all those. It may be the biggest development of the past week.

*** More evidence pick happens end of next week: The Newark Star Ledger has this little nugget in today’s paper: “Although most attention was focused on the possible vice presidential nominee, one person close to the situation said the selection of Christie as the keynote speaker could come from the Romney camp as early as this weekend.” So, one of the little surprises on this bus tour (that already includes appearances with veep hopefuls Bob McDonnell, Marco Rubio, and Rob Portman) that the Romney campaign might have some fun with is that Chris Christie could be unveiled as the RNC keynoter. This is shaping up to be the biggest tease bus trip since Sarah Palin went on her national parks summer vacation. It’s all the more reason to think the pick will likely happen at the end of next week. This is all playing out exactly how the Romney campaign would want – milking the speculation and buzz nationally and locally.

*** On the trail: President Obama hosts a Ramadan dinner at the White House at 8:30 pm ET.

Countdown to GOP convention: 17 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 24 days
Countdown to 1^st presidential debate: 54 days
Countdown to VP debate: 62 days
Countdown to 2^nd presidential debate: 67 days
Countdown to 3^rd presidential debate: 73 days
Countdown to Election Day: 88 days

Click here to sign up for First Read emails. 
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

Priorities USA’s ad, attempting to link Mitt Romney to a woman dying of cancer, has been declared out-of-bounds and below-the-belt by independent fact-checkers. And because of it, the Obama campaign and White House has tried to distance itself from it by claiming it didn’t know the man’s story in the ad.

But there was a shift yesterday. Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Air Force One yesterday: “No one is denying that he was in a campaign -- one of our campaign ads. He was on a conference call telling his story.”

The campaign and spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter had earlier suggested they didn’t know his details: “I don't know the facts of when Joe Soptic's wife got sick or when she died,” she said.

Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said on “Morning Joe” Wednesday: “This is an ad by an entity that's not controlled by the campaign. I certainly don't know the specifics of this man's case.”

This once again highlights the phony separation between the campaigns and Super PACs, which BOTH sides are guilty of.

Politico and Yahoo wrap the Priorities flap.

Maggie Haberman writes: “[I]t's worth noting that neither side — either the campaigns themselves or the super PACs — have been known for the high road this cycle. The pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future accused Newt Gingrich of supporting China's brutal one-child policy, for instance — and the pro-Gingrich super PAC was the one that first launched Bain-related attacks. Obama backers and Democrats also demanded Romney renounce ads that a super PAC funded by businessman Joe Ricketts had discussed that would feature the president's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”

In Wisconsin, Obama leads Romney 50-43% among all voters (50-45% among likelies) in a new Marquette Law School poll. He gets a 50% approval rating. Obama’s favorability rating is 53/42%. Romney, meanwhile, is a net-negative – 36%/48%.

USA Today: "People using Twitter in swing states -- with the heaviest doses of political advertising -- appear to have developed a very negative view of both President Obama and Mitt Romney. In tweets from 12 key battleground states, sentiment toward Romney had been generally more favorable than Obama early this summer, and Romney's Twitter favorability was higher in swing states than nationally. But by mid-July, the Republican presidential candidate's advantage had dropped off, and he and Obama were both mired in swing state tweet doldrums, with bottom-end ratings below their already low national scores. These are the first results of the swing state sampe of the USA Today/Twitter Electino Meter. The meter tracks the daily Twitter Political Index, a measurement of national Twitter sentiment toward Romney and Obama."

MASSACHUSETTS: “The cloud stirred up by a group’s effort to increase voter registration among Massachusetts welfare recipients dovetails with the Democrats’ primary plan for winning this fall’s US Senate race, even if it is not sanctioned by the Patrick administration or state Democratic party,” the Boston Globe’s Johnson writes. “That plan is this: increase turnout among traditional liberal Democratic constituencies by all means possible, swamping Senator Scott Brown and the Republican Party during a presidential year. Brown’s rival, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, is doing her part with tough talk about Wall Street, as well as policy proposals including an infrastructure plan aimed at winning votes from lunchbucket Democrats such as labor unions. … And now Brown and the Massachusetts Republican Party are charging that Patrick’s administration itself, as well as an outside group guided by Warren’s own daughter, are trying to do their part by spending public funds to increase turnout among welfare recipients. That’s the kind of downtrodden constituency that usually leans toward the Democrats and their belief in a strong social safety net. The challenge to all that is that by tacking hard to the left, Warren and her party risk alienating unenrolled voters. At 52 percent of all registered voters, they represent the majority of the Massachusetts electorate.” But: “Never mind that such outreach is compelled by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the ‘motor voter’ law that has already made registration commonplace at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.”

"From the blue-collar steel town of Pueblo to a college campus in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs, President Barack Obama appealed to middle class voters Thursday to give him four more years, saying he is the candidate who has looked out for them and the only one who will continue to do so,” The Denver Post writes. “As he did in Denver and Grand Junction on Wednesday, Obama repeatedly hit on what he says is the fundamental difference between his and opponent Mitt Romney's visions for the country: Romney wants to decrease taxes for the wealthiest Americans, while Obama would raise them and give middle-class families a tax cut.”

“President Obama’s staff arranged for him to be personally briefed last summer on a loan program to help clean-energy companies, two months before the program was thrust into headlines by the collapse of its flagship, the solar company Solyndra, records show,” the Washington Post writes. “About the same time, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley resolved a dispute among administration officials over another project in the program, clearing the way for a $1.4 billion loan, according to documents and sources familiar with the situation. The documents, a series of e-mails among Energy Department staff members involved in managing the program, provide new details about the level of White House involvement in the controversial initiative. White House officials have said in the past that final decisions about which companies would receive the loan guarantees were made by career staff members at the Energy Department, not political appointees. Administration officials said Wednesday that the e-mails show that the White House involvement was appropriate and that there was no pressure on agency officials.”

Politico: "Advisers to President Barack Obama are scripting a Democratic National Convention featuring several Republicans in a prime-time appeal to independents — and plan a blistering portrayal of Mitt Romney as a heartless aristocrat who “would devastate the American middle class,” Democratic sources tell POLITICO. According to convention planning documents, the three-night convention in Charlotte, N.C., early next month will seek to “[e]xpose Mitt Romney as someone who doesn’t understand middle class challenges” while also burnishing “the President’s image as someone whose life story is about fighting for middle class Americans and those working to get into the middle class.”

National Journal: The Obama campaign is out with a rebuttal ad, addressing a Mitt Romney spot that attacked the president on welfare reform.

David Koch is a Romney delegate, National Journal reports: “The New York Republican Party listed Koch as one of the state's 34 at-large delegates on a roster provided by the party. Koch, whose position atop Koch Industries gives him a net worth that Forbes estimates at $25 billion, has fueled tens of millions of dollars into philanthropies in New York City. But he's best known in the political world as the driving force behind Americans for Prosperity, the 501(c)(4) organization that claims nearly 2 million members who advocate for conservative causes. The group has already spent more than $17 million on television campaign advertisements this year alone. Earlier this week, AFP announced it would spend an additional $25 million on a monthlong advertising buy in 11 battleground states.”

Political Wire: “The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, "familiar as the producer of a ubiquitous plant fertilizer, is now a political player, donating $200,000 in June to the Restore Our Future super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney," the Washington Post reports.”

What does Obama failing Ohio have to do with Oklahoma in a Romney ad?

Romney’s Israel ad is running in West Palm Beach, FL, with $50,000 behind it from Aug. 9-14, Politico reports.

Really, are Republicans ready to embrace Trump? “Donald Trump has declined an offer to deliver a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention, sources with knowledge of convention plans tell Newsmax. But Newsmax has learned that the billionaire businessman has been asked to give a big ‘surprise’ at the convention in Tampa, Fla., which begins on Aug. 27.”

For what it’s worth, neither the RNC nor the Republican National Convention would confirm nor deny the story. Instead, convention spokesman Kyle Downey would only say: “We announced several headliners earlier this week and will continue to announce more headliners and participants, including the keynote, in the days and weeks ahead.”

That was even when asked if they were OK with having the perception out there that Trump was invited to speak in prime time and would have a prominent role at the convention. So they’re not denying it (letting it be out there) and they’re not copping to it (wanting some distance).

The New York Times: "Look closely and it is there, sandwiched between Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Partners II and D3 Family Bulldog Fund: the mortgage on Timothy and Betty Stamps’s modest home on Gentle Bend Drive here. Nearly lost among the blizzard of hedge funds, thoroughbred horses and other gold-plated investments in Mitt Romney's personal financial disclosures, the interest from the $50,500 mortgage is loose change to Mr. Romney, whose net worth has been estimated at close to a quarter-billion dollars. Yet for the Stampses, who have been writing $600 monthly checks to ‘Willard M. Romney’ for 15 years, the money they borrowed from him to buy their home in 1997 was life-changing." 

"Is Mitt Romney the GOP's future, or is he the GOP's past? That's one way to look at his upcoming choice of a running mate. As Mr. Romney gears up for that announcement, the political world is tripping through the usual speculation about which veep candidate offers Mr. Romney the biggest Electoral College bang. Can Rob Portman deliver Ohio? Can Marco Rubio help with Florida? Would Bobby Jindal stir the minority vote? Might not Kelly Ayotte tap those younger voters, and women? Blah, blah, blah. As Mr. Romney is fond of saying, this election is big—very big—and will come down to a "fundamental choice." The Republican means that in the sense of his own philosophical differences with Barack Obama. But that "choice" might just as easily be a reference to today's two wings of the GOP—the old political operators, and the new aggressive reformers," The Wall Street Journal writes.

PAWLENTY: The Washington Post headline: "Pawlenty patiently waiting for payoff."

RYAN: Politico on why Paul Ryan's Washington lineage could be a risk for Mitt Romney.

The New York Post headline: "Don't fear Paul Ryan"

The New York Daily News: "He wasn’t hired. Despite his wishes, Donald Trump will not be among the featured speakers at the Republican National Convention, sources confirmed Thursday. Trump had been fueling talk that he was going to get a coveted speaking slot during the GOP lovefest later this month — but his team claims he will still play a “major role” in Tampa."

Political Wire: “Four staffers of former Rep. Thad McCotter (R-MI) ‘were charged today in connection with the false nominating petitions that led to McCotter's departure from Congress,’ the Detroit Free Press reports.”

President Barack Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney have been sparring over increasingly negative ads, arguing the other has distorted the truth. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.

Latent conservative trepidation toward Mitt Romney has resurfaced to a degree in recent days as it relates to the presumptive GOP nominee's search for a running mate and renewed defense of health reform in Massachusetts.

Prominent voices on the right have begun urging Romney to settle on a "bold" choice as his running mate, specifically Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan, the author of an ambitious budget proposal that has made him a darling among conservatives.

Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves to people gathered across the street as he leaves a finance event Aug. 9 in New York.

Separately, the campaign is weathering a minor conservative uproar associated with a spokeswoman's response to a critical ad from a pro-Obama super PAC that suggested Romney was indirectly responsible for a woman's cancer death because her husband lost his insurance after his Bain-owned employer laid him off.

"To that point, you know, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care," the spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said Wednesday on Fox News in reference to the health reform law Massachusetts enacted while Romney was governor.

The comment earned an immediate rebuke from activist conservatives who had expressed concern about Romney's ability to argue the case against President Obama's health care law because of its similarities to the Massachusetts reforms.

RedState's Erick Erickson said it was "the moment all the doubts about Romney resurfaced on the right," while conservative columnist Ann Coulter called for the spokeswoman's firing.

"It takes a Republican candidate who's willing to put the fists out there and fight back hard. The response, for example, to this lying, smearing super PAC ad accusing Romney of a murder is not to talk about Romneycare," Michelle Malkin said Wednesday evening on Fox News. "It's to talk about the Obama jobs death toll and the Beltway jobs massacre and the thousands of real workers out there who have had their pensions and health care stripped."

It underscored the tenuous relationship Romney has had with his party's stalwarts, whom he struggled to charm throughout the Republican primary earlier this year.

While Republicans have largely rallied around Romney, his relationship with the right seems to be mostly a marriage of convenience -- one in which Romney represents the best, if imperfect, chance to defeat President Barack Obama in November.

To that end, the June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll contained a telling statistic: 58 percent of registered voters who said they planned to vote for Romney said their vote was more about voting against Obama. Thirty-five percent said their vote was mostly in favor of Romney.

It's also emblematic of the current split within the GOP between activists who favor a more strongly ideological approach and those who wish to wed political strategy with policy goals. Romney, to many conservatives, firmly represents the latter approach.

That sentiment has manifested itself in some conservatives' demand that Romney put forth a more digestible jobs plan, or use more aggressive rhetoric toward Obama. It's also contributed to a growing drumbeat in favor of putting Ryan on the GOP ticket.

"Romney has to carry the argument to President Barack Obama. The state of the economy alone isn’t enough to convince people that Romney has better ideas to create jobs. Neither is his résumé," National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote Wednesday in Politico. "Romney needs to make the case for his program, and perhaps no one is better suited to contribute to this effort than Ryan."

Agitation in favor of someone like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie points toward the same sentiment, too. Some conservatives are looking for a pick that would plainly and forcefully make the case for an alternative conservative vision to Obama's.

It's one of the reasons that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker emerged as such a hero to Republicans. His collective-bargaining reforms in Wisconsin were nothing short of audacious, but he survived a recall effort with even more political capital. And now Walker, and other policy gurus like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, have in recent months pressed Romney to offer a more affirmative policy agenda.

Whether Romney can quell this eternal tension on the right is a question that might never have an answer. He has shown the capacity, though, to rally the GOP behind his candidacy in certain instances. It might just be that the most unifying element on the right stems from attacks from Obama or negative media coverage.

The original Priorities USA ad, for instance, has done almost as much to unite appalled conservatives as anything else the former Massachusetts governor's campaign has done.

Look no further for evidence than this morning's Republican National Committee conference call in which Romney's primary campaign nemesis, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, declined to relitigate his primary campaign criticism of Romney as the worst possible candidate to take on Obama on the issue of health care.

"You talk about contempt? That was a contemptible ad. The facts clearly do not support what that ad was all about," Santorum said.

"All I can say is Gov. Romney is going to be a far superior candidate on the issue of health care than Barack Obama," Santorum added. "The differences between Gov. Romney and me in the primary really fall to the wayside when it comes to differences between the Republican nominee, Gov. Romney, and Barack Obama."

PUEBLO, CO -- President Obama continued his two-day Colorado tour with a stop in a city that allowed him to flaunt what his campaign considers an advantage over Mitt Romney in this crucial swing state: his support for wind energy production tax credits. 

Speaking to a crowd of 3,500 at the state fairgrounds’ agriculture pavilion here, Obama contrasted his support for the federal wind production tax credit with Romney’s opposition to it. 

“At a moment when homegrown energy, renewable energy, is creating new jobs in states like Colorado and Iowa, my opponent wants to end tax credits for wind energy producers,” the president said to a crowd of 3,500 in the state fair’s agricultural pavilion here.

“Think about what that would mean for a community like Pueblo,” Obama continued. Pueblo in fact is a big wind energy hub, home to Danish wind energy company Vestas’ wind tower factory, the biggest such facility in the world.

A Romney spokesman told the Des Moines Register in July that Romney would “allow the wind credit to expire,” suggesting that action would lead to a more “level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.”

Romney also received criticism from some Republican senators, congressmen, and a governor from regions that benefit from the tax credit, like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who said Wednesday that he felt like “it was just like a knife in my back” when he found out Romney did not support the wind energy tax credit. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, also a Republican, said Romney "needs to be educated as to how important this is." Wind accounts for thousands of jobs in the region, they said.

Notably, Obama is spending three days next week in Iowa.

Obama countered Romney’s position by saying the tax credit for oil production, not wind energy, should be the one to go.  

“Colorado, it’s time to stop spending millions in taxpayer subsidies on an oil industry that’s already making a lot of profit,” he said.

In addition to touting his support for wind energy, the Obama campaign also seemed to add extra touches to the event to appeal to Hispanic voters, which make up 49.8 percent of Pueblo’s population (21 percent of all of Coloradans), according to the 2010 census and are a key part of Obama’s equation for winning the state in November.

A mariachi band and traditional dancers that revved up the crowd before the program began, and among the speakers introducing Obama was former Secretary of Energy and Transportation Federico Pena, who led the crowd in a chant of, “Si se puede!”  or yes, we can.

President Obama won Pueblo County, named after the historic city, 56 to 42 percent, over John McCain in 2008. But statewide polls show a tight race between the president and Romney.

The president heads to Colorado Springs later Thursday for his last of four events in the state before heading back to Washington.

WATERFORD, Mich. -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty laughed off "lame" questions Thursday about whether he'd be interested in a cabinet position in a Mitt Romney administration if he isn't selected as the GOP's vice presidential candidate.

"It would be presumptuous and premature for people to be talking about positions down the road," he told reporters at a cabinetry store outside of Detroit, poking at the press for the pun on "cabinets."

"And for me I'm just happy to help [Gov. Romney] as a volunteer. I'm happy to be working in the private sector and on other projects, so beyond that I don't have any plans," he added.

Pawlenty, who is widely discussed as being a possible partner for Romney on the GOP ticket, appeared in eastern Michigan as part of a fundraising tour on the GOP nominee's behalf. As a former governor who no longer serves in elected office or has a professional post other than his membership on a bevy of business boards, he would be a prime candidate for a job in Romney's administration should he be passed over for the No. 2 slot.

In addition to a peppering of questions from reporters eager to match his schedule with a possible secret veep rollout, he fielded inquiries about the Romney campaign's new television advertisements.

Asked about a new ad that links President Obama's contraception coverage policy with a "war on religion," Pawlenty pointed to Romney's past comment that available contraceptives are "working just fine."

"I think Gov. Romney said it best in one of the televised debates when he said contraceptives are working fine and we should leave them alone," he said, referencing  January debate in New Hampshire. "And to his point on religious liberties he was referring to the fact that the Obama administration has imposed new limitations on the exercise of religion and has offended the many leaders of the Catholic church and other faith leaders in that regard."

Touring the cabinetry facility with owners Rik and Mike Kowall, the former Minnesota governor munched on donuts and chatted about the impact of economic uncertainty on small businesses.

"Who decides what music you play?" he joked with one employee as Dire Straits' hit "Money for Nothing" blared in the workroom.

Pawlenty is expected to travel to New Hampshire for a busy slate of public events on Saturday.

The battleground hasn’t expanded – it’s still being played on Obama’s turf … But the focus has narrowed to four states this week – Iowa, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado … Team Romney maintains 2-to-1 spending edge … Activist conservatives still don’t trust Romney – just look at how they pounced yesterday …  Is Romney embracing “RomneyCare” again … The spiral campaign: Sandra Fluke introduces Obama, Romney invokes Pope John Paul II in an ad -- it’s birth control vs. religious freedom again. … Conservative intelligentsia continues to push Ryan for veep.

Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks to supporters during a campaign event at Central Campus High School in Des Moines, Iowa August 8, 2012.

*** Romney hasn’t expanded the map: Here we are in August and what the Obama campaign, at the beginning of all this, said would be the battleground states are the battleground states. They are not what the Romney camp said and hoped it would be, expanding to places like Pennsylvania and Minnesota (and Michigan and Wisconsin still look like reaches). Look at the four states where the campaigns are advertising most heavily this week (by points) – Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, and Iowa. All four are states George W. Bush and Barack Obama carried. And just one of those is a state Al Gore carried (Iowa). The point is: just four years ago, these were all places Republicans had traditionally been favored in. Yes, it speaks to polarization and a demographically divided America. But this is one reason why Romney’s perceived to be slightly behind – because he hasn’t expanded the playing field. Now, Obama’s defending in all these states, but he’s just not playing defense enough or in any other places. There has been advertising in just 11 states this election, now it’s really only just about eight -- with none or very little in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

*** Team Romney maintains 2-to-1 ad-spending edge: All that said, Team Romney (the Romney campaign, RNC, and outside groups) is making as strong a push as it can in this shrunken (or not expanded) playing field to help Romney over the finish line for a narrow victory. This week's total ad spending in the presidential race -- $31 million -- isn't quite as high as we thought it would be. But it's still high, especially for August, and Team Romney continues its 2-to-1 advantage over Team Obama -- $20 million to $11 million, which we’ve seen consistently for about a month now. Previously, outside spending had brought Romney to about even with Obama. Here's this week's total ad spending (8/6 to 8/12), per SMG Delta:

-          Obama $10 million
-          Romney $8.5 million
-          Americans for Prosperity $4.6 million
-          Restore Our Future $2.8 million
-          Crossroads GPS $2.3 million
-          RNC $2 million
-          Priorities USA $870K
-          SEIU $217K

The reason why this week's ad spending wasn't as high as we originally assumed: The Crossroads GPS buy is ending (just as AFP goes up) and the Obama camp isn't spending as much as it did last week.

*** This week's 10 hottest TV markets: And here is our weekly look at the week's 10 hottest TV markets (in terms of advertising points from 8/6 to 8/12): 

1. Colorado Springs, CO (Romney 1100, Obama 1000, AFP 540, RNC 200, ROF 180, Priorities 165, Crossroads 100)
2. Cincinnati, OH (Romney 1500, Obama 1000, AFP 250, ROF 250, Crossroads 170, RNC 150)
3. Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA (Romney 1000, Obama 900, AFP 900, RNC 170, ROF 150, Crossroads 120)
4. Des Moines, IA (Obama 1350, Romney 1100, AFP 400, RNC 190, Crossroads 150, ROF 130)
5. Richmond-Petersburg, VA (Romney 1300, Obama 1000, AFP 320, RNC 180, Crossroads 160, ROF 160, Priorities 155)
6. Cedar Rapids, IA (Obama 1000, Romney 1000, AFP 610, ROF 225, RNC 215, Crossroads 100)
7. Quad Cities, IA (Obama 1100, Romney 1100, AFP 315, Crossroads 160, ROF 130, RNC 100)
8.  Denver, CO (Romney 1100, Obama 650, AFP 380, RNC 250, Priorities 230, ROF 200, Crossroads 100) 9. Columbus, OH (Romney 1000, Obama 830, AFP 300, RNC 160, ROF 150, Priorities 130, Crossroads 120)
10. Toledo, OH (Romney 980, Obama 940, AFP 330, RNC 180, ROF 160, Crossroads 100)

That’s just four states, including three markets each in Iowa and Ohio and two each in Virginia and Colorado. By the way, don’t ignore the wind tax credit story (Romney’s against it). It’s a big deal in Iowa and Colorado. It’s been picked up now by the New York Times, AP, Wall Street Journal, National Journal, and began with the Des Moines Register and been noted by the Denver Post. It’s a sleeper local issue that has Republicans pushing back against Romney’s stance of wanting to eliminate the “production tax credit” because, they say, it would cost jobs.

*** Ready to pounce: If you needed more proof that the activist base of the Republican Party just doesn’t inherently trust Mitt Romney, look no further than how ready to pounce they were yesterday to a comment made by a spokesperson and not even the candidate. The comment that sparked the outrage was from Andrea Saul talking about the Priorities ad that goes so far as to link Romney to a woman who died from cancer. “[I]f people had been in Massachusetts, under Gov. Romney's health care plan, they would have had health care,” she said. Just that comment alone prompted the likes of Ann Coulter to call for her firing on Laura Ingraham’s show. Ingraham herself posted that Saul “wins the ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ Award of the Day.” Red State’s Erick Erickson wrote a blog post entitled: "The Moment All the Doubts About Romney Resurfaced on the Right." “Consider the scab picked, the wound opened, and the distrust trickling out again,” he wrote. And Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves in disbelief, calling the comments a “potential gold mine for Obama supporters.” The activist base just never gives Romney the benefit of the doubt – despite how much Romney has tried to do in lining up with their positions over the past several years. And remember, Romney hasn’t distanced himself from the Massachusetts health law; he just says it isn’t right for country (now).

*** But was this a coincidence or something else? But has Romney’s tone shifted a bit on health care. It just so happened that coinciding with the “comment that sparked outrage around the conservative blogosphere,” was Romney talking favorably about “RomneyCare.” While the focus of Romney’s day was once again pushing his welfare charge against the president, Romney also said this yesterday in Iowa: “We've got to do some reforms in health care, and I have some experience doing that, as you know, and I know how to make a better setting than the one we have in health care. I want to make sure that those who have pre-existing conditions are able to get insurance, that people don't have to worry about being dropped from their insurance coverage, and that health insurance is available to all people. And I want to bring the cost of health care down - the cost of health care." As NBC’s Garrett Haake notes, this is much more than the zero mention he usually gives to “RomneyCare.” But we ask this: Would it really be a surprise if Romney tried to defend this a little bit more, especially with Romney so far behind with women.

*** Back to the Future: Speaking of women, four months ago, the political world’s controversy du jour was the battle of birth control vs. religious freedom. Well, it’s baaaack. Yesterday, Sandra Fluke introduced Obama in Colorado, and today, the Romney campaign is out with an ad, “Be Not Afraid,” contending Obama has declared "war on religion" and even invokes Pope John Paul II. The ad clips from Romney’s speech in Poland and shows him shaking hands with Lech Walesa. (John Paul was also from Poland.) The ad seems like an attempt to make a play for industrial Midwest Notre Dame Catholics. But it has an odd feel and doesn’t seem aimed at swing voters. We’re curious to see where this one airs. (Here’s NBC’s Andrea Mitchell’s Nightly News spot on the battle for women.)

*** Veepstakes watch – the Ryan buzz continues in GOP circles: Everyone’s still waiting to see if Romney makes the pick before his bus tour (less likely), during the bus tour (possible, not probable), or afterward in run up to the convention (most likely). We reported yesterday that Paul Ryan is in the final three and the Ryan buzz continues today in GOP circles with the influential conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page today writing: “Why Not Paul Ryan?” Here’s Rich Lowry in Politico: “This is the broader point. Romney has to carry the argument to President Barack Obama. The state of the economy alone isn’t enough to convince people that Romney has better ideas to create jobs. Neither is his résumé. Romney needs to make the case for his program, and perhaps no one is better suited to contribute to this effort than Ryan.” As NBCNews.com’s Michael O’Brien notes: “It’s not just the media haranguing Romney for more detail. It’s conservatives, too. There’s a school of thought led by the Ryans and Walkers of the world that believe the only way to run a campaign is to offer a clear, understandable alternative, and stand up for it.” Whether Ryan and his budget plan is the way to win over swing voters or older voters in Florida, though, is another question.

*** Obama remains in Colorado, Romney raises money: President Obama is in Colorado for two more events today -- in Pueblo at 12:40 pm ET and Colorado Springs at 5:15 pm ET. Romney holds a breakfast fundraiser in New York City.

Countdown to GOP convention: 18 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 25 days
Countdown to 1^st presidential debate: 55 days
Countdown to VP debate: 63 days
Countdown to 2^nd presidential debate: 68 days
Countdown to 3^rd presidential debate: 74 days
Countdown to Election Day: 89 days

Click here to sign up for First Read emails. 
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

Politico: “President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would like to win over undecided voters — but there just aren’t many of them left. So in a super-tight election year, the campaigns are focusing more on appealing to their base voters than on winning new converts, preaching to a choir their teams hope will sing at full volume by Election Day.”

We, at First Read, have noted that because of the intensity numbers we’ve seen in the NBC/WSJ poll, there are indications that we could very well be headed to a base election similar to 2004. Undecideds don’t trust Obama on the economy, but like Romney even less. And their enthusiasm is way down, and they very well could stay home.

As we wrote July 25: “Our pollsters went back through the last three months and gathered together all of the people who have said they are either ‘depends,’ ‘neither,’ or ‘not sure’ when it comes to Romney vs. Obama to create a comprehensive look at the undecideds. And it’s not good news for the president. About the only thing the ‘undecided’ are undecided on is the horse race. They have ‘decided’ on how they view the president and the country. The “undecideds” are more pessimistic about the direction of the country and the economy and the job the president’s doing overall and on the economy. By any stretch, these should be people willing to fire Obama and vote for Romney – EXCEPT that they don’t like him very much at all. While Obama’s fav/unfav with the group is an abysmal 29%/42%, Romney’s is even WORSE – 16/44. 16!!! These voters, if they vote, won’t likely evenly split. It will be because Romney convinced them they should vote for him. But so far, almost none of his messaging/rhetoric looks like it’s appealing to them – and Obama’s Bain attacks likely are making an impact. As Tom Edsall wrote this week, the cynical hope for Obama here is that they stay home. By the way, these undecideds score low on the ‘interest’-in-election scale, even lower than Hispanics and young voters.”