DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Mitt Romney responded to President Barack Obama's latest attack, accusing the GOP nominee of forgetting and shifting his positions on issues on Friday night by calling out the Obama campaign for resorting to "petty attacks and silly word games" in the final three weeks of the campaign.

"Have you been watching the Obama campaign lately?" Romney asked a crowd of several thousand supporters at an outdoor event Friday night. "It's absolutely remarkable. They have absolutely no agenda for the future. No agenda for America. No agenda for a second term. It's a good thing they won't have a second term."

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"They've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games. Just watch it. The Obama campaign has become the incredible shrinking campaign," Romney said.

Romney's counter came after Obama unveiled a new line of attack at a rally earlier Friday in Virginia, coining the term "Romnesia" to describe satirically how Romney might have changed positions on issues by forgetting his past stances over the years.

“He's changing up so much -- backtracking and sidestepping. We've got to name this condition that he's going through. I think ... I think it's called 'Romnesia'. Now, I'm not a medical doctor but I do want to go over some of the symptoms with you. Because I want to make sure nobody else catches it,” the president said.

“If you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia,” Obama said to laughs. “If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you supported legislation that would let your employers deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.”

Romney continued his own new assault on what he claimed was the lack of a second term agenda for the Democratic administration, a chord he has been striking at each appearance since the second debate.

"The president has no jobs agenda. We keep on asking him: What are you going to do to create jobs? He has nothing new. He says well we're going to go forward," Romney said. "Forewarned is a better term."

“Here’s just part of President Obama’s agenda for a second term: double our exports, create a million manufacturing jobs, cut oil imports in half, recruit 100,000 math and science teachers, train two million workers at community colleges, and reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion," Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner responded in a statement.

Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's joint appearance in the Sunshine State, their third such joint stop here -- and Romney's plan to stay here through Monday night's debate -- reflect the closeness of the race here. A new poll from CNN/ORC shows the Florida in a statistical dead heat -- with Romney claiming 49 percent of the vote to Obama's 48 percent.

At a fundraiser in Boca Raton on Friday, Ryan told donors their late gifts could make the difference in financing a turnout operation that will determine the winner of this often-decisive battleground state.

"Your dollars are going straight to voter turnout, to voter education, to cutting thru the clutter, to giving the country a choice that they themselves deserve," Ryan said.

 

 

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan used President Bill Clinton’s own words Thursday against President Barack Obama.

“Just today, President Bill Clinton said it is true that our economy is not fixed. He is right,” Ryan said at an outdoor rally at Lee County Sports Complex field.

Clinton was campaigning for Obama in Ohio with rocker Bruce Springsteen when he said: “Governor Romney’s argument is, ‘We’re not fixed, so fire him and put me in.’ It is true, we’re not fixed. When President Obama looked into the eyes of that man who said in the debate, ‘I had so much hope four years ago and I don’t now,’ I thought he was going to cry because he knows that it’s not fixed."

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Back in Southwest Florida, Congressman Ryan addressed nearly 3,600 people and cited other “revealing things” Obama and his allies have said lately.

“You know what? If the president can’t fix Washington from the inside; if the middle class has been buried for the last four years; and if the economy is not fixed, it is time we change presidents and elect Mitt Romney the next president of the United States.”

President Obama’s campaign shot back at Ryan’s portrayal of Clinton’s remarks.

“In Ohio today, President Clinton powerfully articulated the progress we’re making under President Obama – we’ve created 5.2 million private sector jobs over the last 31 months, the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since January 2009, consumer confidence is at a five-year high, and foreclosures are at a five-year low,” campaign spokesman Danny Kanner said in a statement. “But, as President Clinton noted, we simply can’t afford to go back to the same failed policies that brought our economy to the brink of collapse in the first place – and that’s exactly what Mitt Romney’s offering.”

Friday, Ryan will continue campaigning in the Sunshine State holding events in Tampa and a joint event with Mitt Romney in Daytona Beach.

 

 

OWENSVILLE, OH -- By Wednesday afternoon, Paul Ryan took a harsher tone against President Barack Obama and aligned himself with his running mate, Mitt Romney, regarding the attacks on Americans in the Middle East.

“The administration sent mixed signals to those who attacked our embassy in Egypt, and mixed signals to the world. I want to be clear: It is never too early for the United States to condemn attacks on Americans, on our properties and to defend our values,” Ryan told the crowd in the battleground state of Ohio. “That’s what leadership is all about.”

The GOP vice presidential nominee continued: “This administration’s policies project weakness abroad. Undercutting allies like Israel, outreach to enemies like Iran, national security leaks and devastating defense cuts. A weak America breeds insecurity and chaos around the world. The best guarantee of peace is American strength.” 

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At Ryan’s first event of the day, in his home state of Wisconsin, the seven-term congressman focused less on policy and more on the tragedy itself.

“The attacks on our diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya and the loss of four American lives including our Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens – this is outrageous,” Ryan said in De Pere, Wis. “Our hearts are heavy and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and I would just like to ask at this moment that we join together in a moment of silence in memory of them.”

While at both events, Ryan promised the crowd here that a Romney-Ryan foreign policy would follow the “peace thru strength” doctrine, the event seemed to coincide with rhetoric Mitt Romney used towards Obama Wednesday morning.

Speaking at a press conference in Jacksonville, Fla. early Wednesday, Romney said the president "demonstrated a lack of clarity as to foreign policy” regarding the attacks.

“It’s their administration that spoke,” Romney told reporters at a press conference in Florida. “The president takes responsibility not just for the words that come from his mouth but also for the words that come from his ambassadors, from his administration, from his embassies, from his State Department. They clearly sent mixed messages to the world.”

President Barack Obama fired back at the GOP ticket during an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes. 

"There's a broader lesson to be learned here, and, you know, Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later. As president, one of the things I've learned is you can't do that," Obama said. "It's important for you to make sure that the statements you make are backed up by the facts, and that you thought through the ramifications before you make them."

 

MIAMI, Fla. – Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday continued to relish his unofficial role as the chief explainer of what is at stake in the November election, this time tailoring his message to the young crowd gathered at Florida International University.

Speaking to 2,300 supporters, including many students, Clinton used the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks as a chance to talk about the importance of service -- specifically voting.

"I keep reading that young people are not quite sure if they're going to vote. I tried to argue down in Charlotte last week that that's a mistake, that we have a lot of reasons to vote and we have a good candidate to vote for," said Clinton.

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Young Americans were a key group that helped propel President Obama to victory in 2008, but polling shows that enthusiasm has not matched the level of four years ago.

In Florida, Clinton also reached out to older Americans, saying Republicans have spread "misinformation" about Democrats plans for Medicare.  It is the same misinformation that led the GOP to an electoral landslide in the 2010 midterms, Clinton said.

"They got away with running this old dog through the chute in 2010 and countless thousands of seniors voted because they were given misinformation against people who supported a plan to strengthen Medicare," said Clinton. "So I'm talking about it everywhere because the first time they did it, it was their fault. If we let it happen again, it is out fault."

Clinton also fought back against the claims vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and other Republicans have made, arguing that Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare.

"Embarrassingly for the Republicans, the nominee for vice president who's chair of the house budget committee, produced a budget that had exactly the same callings for savings that the Obama budget did, and that was true in 2010 when they were advertising against it. Now, as I said in Charlotte, you got to hand it to them; it takes real brass to attack people for doing what you did," Clinton said.

According to a Pew Research poll, Clinton's keynote address last week was for many the highlight of the Democratic convention, drawing an even more favorable rating than Obama's speech.  It was a straight-forward assessment of why the president deserves re-election, and it is the same message he took down to the swing-state of Florida on Tuesday. The man who has been dubbed the "Explainer-in-chief" heads to Orlando Wednesday for another rally.

Along with Medicare and the economic recovery, Clinton also defended the president's record on solar energy and the often shied away topic of the stimulus, saying it helped prevent even high levels of unemployment.  All of it, Clinton said, has laid the foundation for an economic recovery that will be at risk if Mitt Romney is elected.

"The test is not whether you think everything is hunky-dory. If that were the test, the president would vote against himself.  He said that everything is not hunky-dory," he said. "The test is whether he's taken us in the right direction, and the answer is yes."

 

OXFORD, OH -- Appearing at his alma mater Wednesday, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan weighed in on the Medicare debate for the first time before voters on the campaign trail.

“The president, I'm told, is talking about Medicare today,” Congressman Ryan told the couple-thousand-person crowd at Miami University. “We want this debate, we need this debate, and we will win this debate.”

The Medicare debate is quickly becoming a key issue going into the November election especially after Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, authored a controversial bill that would transform the health care system for seniors and has been taking heat for it from President Obama and Democrats.

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While Ryan touched on the topic on a college campus Wednesday, he mostly attacked Obama and failed to offer specifics of what a Romney-Ryan plan would look like.

The day after the presumptive GOP presidential nominee himself stumped in the Buckeye State, Paul made his first appearance in the state since being announced as VP and even recalled several local spots he would frequent when he was a student here.

“Ohio is so important. You know this. You’re used to it. The Buckeye state could very well determine the future of our country for a long time,” Paul told the crowd outside about the third battleground state he has been in.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman – once considered the frontrunner for the VP pick – was on hand for Ryan’s visit to his state and praised Romney’s selection of the seven term Wisconsin congressman.

“Paul Ryan, as I said earlier, is a Redhawk, so Redhawks should be soaring today, but he is also a very good friend,” Portman said. “He is one of those guys in Congress that is there for the right reasons and you know what that reason is? It is about his family. It’s about your family. It's about being sure that the American dream can be restored. That’s what Paul Ryan is about.”

The crowd was made well aware that Portman was nearly selected to join Romney’s ticket.

“I want to tell you, it was sort of funny because as you know [Portman] was seriously considered for this job,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich told the crowd before Portman’s remarks. Portman’s “wife told me … 17-year-old Sally is the vice president of her class and Rob’s wife said this family can only stand one vice president at a time.”

Congressman Ryan, meanwhile, had nothing but kind words to say about Portman.

“Rob is a very close friend, we've been through a lot together,” Ryan said. “I just want to tell you what a special man this is. I thank you for your service Rob Portman you are one great United States senator.”

 

As speculation abounds about Mitt Romney's selection for a running mate, the Obama campaign is revving the engines to ensure its supporters in the home states of the possible picks are ready to dish some local dirt.

In emails to supporters in Ohio, Florida, and Minnesota, Obama for America invites critics of hometown pols Sen. Rob Portman, Sen. Marco Rubio, and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty to "share what you think Americans need to know about" the could-be vice presidential candidates.

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An email to Obama for America's Minnesota supporters calls　Pawlenty "our former governor and 'Obamneycare' critic" and asks if the onetime presidential candidate "will really be Mitt Romney's running mate."

"Most Americans don't know Tim Pawlenty," the email reads. "But as a Minnesotan, you do -- and the truth is painful for the middle-class families who lived under his leadership. Like Romney, Pawlenty proved that when he's in charge, fees and taxes go up, job creation goes down, transparency gets worse, and women's rights are threatened."

The message: Those who know the talked-about running mates need to spread the word to a nation that doesn't know much about the "disaster" each would be as Romney's partner in the White House.

An email to Floridians dumps a sampling of opposition research on Rubio: "In the Florida State House, Rubio balanced the budget by sticking it to the middle class. And in the Senate, Rubio's led the way on almost every extreme position Mitt Romney has embraced. If chosen as Romney's VP, we can count on Rubio to lead us right back to the failed economic policies of the past. Remember -- this is the guy who called George W. Bush a ‘fantastic’ president."

A similar message was sent to Ohio Obama backers about Sen. Rob Portman: "The most damning pieces of his record involve choices he made as a senior member of the Bush-Cheney administration and conservative congressman, the consequences of which still reverberate on a national scale."

The message continued: "As one of the architects of the top-down Bush budget, Portman practically invented the policies that punished middle-class families while exploding the deficit, and crashing our economy."

Each email contains a link to a clearinghouse site where participants can, for example, "share what you think the rest of the country should know about what Rubio's really done in Florida -- the good, bad, and ugly -- and why he'd be a disaster as our next vice president."

The grassroots communication effort is similar to one launched by the Obama campaign during the GOP primaries.

So far, none of the other possible picks - like Wisconsin's Paul Ryan, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, or New Jersey's Chris Christie - have received the same treatment. But as the buzz picks up, more such efforts could be on the way.

NBC's Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report.

 

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. 

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“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."

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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.

 

 

 

In a rare television interview, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist -- who left the Republican Party during his unsuccessful 2010 U.S. Senate bid -- told Chuck Todd on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" that he'd consider voting for President Obama in November.

“Consider? Sure, I would consider that,” said Crist. “I really think he’s sincere and genuine. I think we have a lot time, a lot of issues to talk about, but I think, in his heart, he’s trying to do what’s right for the country overall.”

Now a registered independent, Crist said he also wouldn't rule out running for office as a Democrat himself in the future.

“I wouldn’t definitively rule out anything,” the former governor said.

In recent days, Newt Gingrich has invoked Crist's name to criticize Mitt Romney, noting that a number of former Crist staffers and supporters are now backing Romney's presidential bid.

Asked if Gingrich’s attack was good Republican primary politics, Crist said, “I really don’t know.”

Since leaving office as governor in 2011, Crist has worked in the private sector as an attorney with the law firm Morgan & Morgan, even appearing in a television ad for the firm.

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PHILADELPHIA, PA - Speaking from the hospital room where he said his ailing 3-year-old daughter is making a "miraculous turnaround," Rick Santorum said that he would resume his campaign on Monday with stops in western caucus states.

"She went through a very tough time the last 48 hours and this afternoon she made really a remarkable turn," Santorum told voters in Florida and Minnesota, via two tele-town halls Sunday night, of his daughter Isabella, who was rushed to the hospital the night before after developing pneumonia in both lungs.

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Santorum said that Isabella, who also suffers from the genetic disorder Trisomy 18, was still in the intensive care unit and was not ready to be released home, but that doctors were encouraged by the improvements made over the past few hours.

 

"We've still got a long way to go here but she has without a doubt turned the corner and we are very, very grateful," he said.

Santorum had cleared his Sunday schedule in Florida to be with his daughter but will be back on the trail tomorrow afternoon with stops over the next two days in Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado and Nevada, all caucus states. He will not be back in Florida before its election on Tuesday, having cancelled an event in Boca Raton scheduled for that morning.

Instead, Santorum will hold a primary night party in Las Vegas, an indication the campaign has pulled its stakes from the Sunshine State where a recent NBC/Marist poll had Santorum in a very distant third place.

In fact, turnout at a Sunday afternoon event in Sarasota - at which Santorum's daughter Elizabeth filled in for her dad - served as an indicator to the campaign as to whether they would continue to stump in the state through Tuesday's primary. The rally, held in the same venue where Newt Gingrich drew more than 3,000 people, had a scant showing of fewer than 250.

Santorum also seemed to have already moved beyond Florida during the call with Minnesota voters in which he emphasized the importance of caucus-style contests to his campaign.

"We want the activists of the party, the people who make up the vast part of the Republican Party, to have a say in who our nominee is as opposed to a bunch of people who don't even identify themselves as Republicans picking our nominee," Santorum said, noting that only registered Republicans can participate in a caucus.

"I believe that a state should only allow Republicans to vote in a Republican primary. Why? Because it's the Republican nomination, not the independent nomination or the Democratic nomination."

Santorum refrained from making such a pro-caucus statement in Florida, which holds a primary, albeit a closed one in which only Republicans can vote.

"This is an election that's wide open; This race isn't going to be decided in Florida, it's not going to be decided for quite some time. But Florida can have a big say," he said to voters on the first call.

And while he didn't handicap his finish in Tuesday's primary, Santorum still predicted he would finish strong in the Sunshine State, thanks to an increase in donations which he said began after his victory in the Iowa caucus was confirmed.

"We're going to come out of Florida I think with a pretty good number, certainly dollars per votes we're going to run rings around the other candidates," Santorum said, referring to the amount of money candidates spend in a state divided by the vote percentage they receive.

A decent showing in Florida will allow him, he continued, to "come into states like Minnesota, Colorado and some of the other states that are having their caucuses and primaries and be in a much better position."

Santorum said he was hoping to "do very well" in Minnesota, adding "we're looking forward to getting up there tomorrow and spending a lot of time and trying to get folks in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes to join us."