• Ryan, Rubio reach for the 'Un-Romney' in dueling speeches

    By NBC's Garrett Haake and Alex Moe

     

    NEW YORK -- Less than a month after Mitt Romney's bid for the White House was suddenly snuffed out, his vice-presidential nominee and another top surrogate -- and fellow potential 2016 presidential candidate --delivered dueling speeches Tuesday that attempted to reframe Republican philosophy in what was a strikingly "Un-Romney" tone.

    Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spoke first at the dinner, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was receiving an award from the foundation of Ryan's mentor, former Rep. Jack Kemp. Ryan's speech -- his first public address since the Nov. 6th loss -- echoed themes from his late October speech in Ohio on economic mobility, but little else from the fall campaign.

    "We have a compassionate vision based on ideas that work - but sometimes we don't do a good job of laying out that vision. We need to do better," Ryan said Tuesday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, an almost word-for-word recitation of what he said Oct. 24th in Cleveland.

    It was in that policy speech just two weeks before Election Day that a glimpse of what the post-election Wisconsin congressman would look like. The Ohio speech was Ryan's brainchild on the trail, reflecting his personal passion for the topic, and the idea of an upwardly mobile society that could be built on Republican principles.

    The speech was the only one of its kind Ryan gave during the 80-plus days he was on Romney's ticket, and perhaps reflecting concerns that Ryan's remarks were off the nominee's messaging, Romney held his own event during Ryan's speech that day, which soaked up news coverage.

    But speaking at the Kemp dinner Tuesday evening, the seven-term congressman launched himself back onto the national stage without Romney or his advisers guiding the message.

    While Ryan praised Romney by name as someone who he felt "would have been a great president," he also very publically distanced himself from his former ticket mate’s "47 percent" remarks to donors at a private fundraiser last spring.

    In the remarks, captured by surreptitious video recording, Romney claimed 47 percent of Americans are "dependent upon government" and would therefor only vote for President Barack Obama and his vision of a larger government.

    "Both parties tend to divide Americans into 'our voters' and 'their voters,'” Ryan said. “But Republicans must steer far clear of that trap. We must speak to the aspirations and anxieties of every American. I believe we can turn the engines of upward mobility back on, so that no one is left out from the promise of America. But it's going to require a bold departure from the approach that government has taken for the last five decades."

    If Ryan was cautiously backing away from the GOP ticket's rhetoric in his remarks, Rubio turned on his heel and walked away from it completely. In his 4,185 words of prepared remarks, two words were notably missing: Mitt and Romney.

    The Florida senator and Tea Party darling focused his remarks on a segment of the population whose imagination the Romney campaign tried, and largely failed, to capture: the middle class.

    Praising the large and stable middle class as something uniquely American, Rubio took aim at what he called a growing "opportunity gap" between those born into the middle class and those who are left to struggle from humbler means to try and get there.

    "For those of us blessed with the opportunity to serve our country in government, one of the fundamental challenges before us is to find an appropriate and sustainable role for government in closing this gap between the dreams of millions of Americans and the opportunities for them to actually realize them," Rubio said, according to prepared remarks.

    "The key to a vibrant middle class is an abundance of jobs that pay enough so that workers can provide for themselves and their families, enjoy leisure time, save for retirement, and pay for their children’s education, so they can grow up and earn even more than their parents."

    Compare that to Romney's own comments on what he called the "opportunity society" he hoped to create, which focused more on the idea of government getting out of the way of business, which could lift up the American people.

    "I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of our opportunity society, led by free people and their free enterprises," Romney said in a speech in Wisconsin March 30th. "The only real solution to help communities devastated by lost jobs is more jobs. President Obama never seems to have understood the basic point that a plant closes when the business starts to lose money. So when the president attacks businesses for making money, and when his policies make it more difficult for businesses to make money, he's also attacking the very communities he wanted to help."

    Romney's rhetoric toward the middle class focused, as did much of his campaign, on creating jobs. His five-point plan for creating jobs and helping the middle class touched on macro issues like controlling debt, supporting free trade and the amorphous phrase "champion small business."

    That type of tone, appealing to the “job creators” more than those looking for work could have led to the polling data First Read noted this morning: Obama beat Romney by 10 points (53%-43%) on which candidate was more in touch with people like you, and, 53% said Romney's policies would favor the rich (compared to just 10% for Obama).

    And while Rubio's policy prescriptions rarely deviated from Republican orthodoxy (he noted he opposed tax increases, and praised faith-based and community organizations as key to stemming "societal breakdown,") he used even his personal story -- and son-of-immigrants background -- to create a contrast with the former Republican standard bearer and paint the Republican Party as not just the party of the wealthy.

    Whereas Romney infamously noted his well-to-do friends (NASCAR and NFL team owners have dubious mentions in the campaign record) and regularly highlighted successful entrepreneurs he had met on the campaign trail, Rubio closed with an anecdote of someone further down the income ladder.

    "A few weeks ago, I was giving a speech at a fancy hotel in New York City,” he said. “When I arrived in the banquet hall, I was approached by a group of three uniformed employees from the hotels catering department. They had seen my speech at the Republican Convention, where I told the story of my father the ‘Banquet Bartender.’ And they had a gift for me. They presented me with this name tag, which says, ‘Rubio, Banquet Bartender.’ That moment reminded me that there are millions of Mario Rubios all across America today. They aren’t looking for a handout; they just want a job that provides for their families."

    With both men striking similar notes it seems clear that at least these top Republican leaders see an inclusive message as a possible path back from the wilderness. Whether either of Tuesday's speakers will become the messenger, remains to be seen. 

    Garrett Haake and Alex Moe were both 2012 presidential campaign embeds for NBC News. Haake covered Mitt Romney and Moe covered Paul Ryan and others.

  • A first-person account: Covering Romney's excellent adventure

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

    In Mississippi, he declared his growing love for “cheesy grits,” and the undeniable utility of the contraction “y'all.” In Michigan, he famously observed that the trees were “the right height.” And in state after state on his nearly two year quest for the White House, Mitt Romney told audience after audience how lucky they were “to live in a place like this.”

    In a late October rally at Colorado’s stunning Red Rocks amphitheater, Romney reflected aloud on the beauty of the scene.

    “This is a magnificent place for a guy born in Detroit to come here and look at these extraordinary mountains -- you look at the handiwork of our creator, and it’s just, it’s just overwhelming,” Romney said.

    Tonight, Romney’s journey will end -- in one way or another. And with it will also end the education of a candidate, of his staff and of a press corps about a theme Romney so often strikes on the campaign trail: the greatness of America.

    “When I was a boy, my parents took me around to the national parks, including the Grand Canyon, to see the beauty of America,” Romney told a crowd of supporters in Arizona in February. “I fell in love with the land. Over the years, I’ve fallen in love with the people.”

    Romney’s closing argument, too, is wrapped and layered in patriotism, including an appeal to supporters to vote today “for love of country.”

    And while reporters may not have joined Romney’s warbling rendition of “America the Beautiful” on a January night in Florida, many of us, too, are having a similarly revealing experience as we crisscross America.

    In my own 16 months of following the Romney campaign, I’ve filed stories from 36 states; a stage in Puerto Rico overlooking the Caribbean Sea; and from three foreign countries. I’ve swam in the Pacific Ocean near La Jolla, skied in the mountains of Utah, and floated on a pontoon boat in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnepesaukee.

    Some memories stay with you more than others.

    On his final night in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Romney attended a political rally disguised as a rave. For three hours, politicians took the stage and chanted, shouted, and exhorted an audience of sign-waving supporters.

    To do what? I have no idea. Almost every word of it was in Spanish, and the Romney press corps, on a stage that looked out over the scene and the sea, sat mostly bemused until Romney took the stage.

    "Politics in Puerto Rico is spoken with energy and passion,” Romney said. “Thank you."

    Ann Romney might have said it better: "You show us how to party," she laughed into the microphone.

    On the final stop of his “Every Town Counts” bus tour in Holland, Mich., Romney rallied a crowd of supporters along the shores of Lake Michigan, diverting into tangents often to sing the praises of his home state as the sun set into the waves. As he finished his remarks he took his wife Ann by the hand and the two walked down to touch the lake.

    After three days on busses, in filing centers and often cheap hotels, I kicked off my shoes and let my toes feel the sand as I shot video of the couple. At the water’s edge I rolled up my jeans and waded in to my ankles.

    In New Hampshire on the Fourth of July, the sense of patriotism was inescapable as Romney, tailed by classic cars, and flanked by family members, walked down Main Street in Wolfeboro, shaking hands and wiping away sweat as he greeted cheering crowds.

    I was the pool reporter for the television networks on that day, and as the parade neared its conclusion, I leapt down from the flatbed truck that had hauled our crew through town in time to see Romney approach a lemonade stand and guzzle a glass. Somehow standing feet apart, all I could think to ask him in that moment was how he enjoyed the drink?

    “Lemon. Wet. Good.” Romney grunted back before plunging into the flag-waving crowd to shake more hands.

    On Twitter, the moment became something of a running joke, but on the street that day it was a classic snapshot of a pure campaign moment -- a man who rarely seems to truly enjoy the act of campaigning, invigorated by the heat of the day, and the passion of those lining the streets, if not directed entirely towards him, than at least towards the country that Romney genuinely loves.

    One reporter on the Romney press corps called this experience “the most patriotic year of our lives.” We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance three or four times daily, and have listened to some of the most moving renditions of the Star Spangled Banner that I have ever heard, including one sung by a girl in Ohio who couldn’t have been older than 10 that has stuck with me for months.

    (However, I won’t speak of Meatloaf’s troubling rendition of God Bless America.) 

    On Monday, Romney himself made the call to extend his tour of America by one more day, adding two last minute stops in battleground states -- rather than sitting at home in Boston to await election results.

    Tuesday morning, Romney called into a radio station in Virginia to explain his decision.

    “I can’t imagine an election being won or lost by, let’s say, a few hundred votes and you spent your day sitting around,” Romney said. “You’d say to yourself: Holy cow, why didn’t I keep working? So I’m going to make sure I never have to look back with anything other than the greatest degree of satisfaction in this whole campaign.”

    And why not fly back out into the heart of the country again to seek that satisfaction?

    This is America, the greatest country on earth.

    Garrett Haake has been the embed reporter covering Romney's campaign over the past year and half for NBC News.

  • Ohio supporters give Romneys emotional farewell

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ten thousand cheering supporters offered an emotional send-off for Mitt and Ann Romney on Monday night, as the Republican nominee held his final Buckeye state rally in an enormous airport hangar here.

    "This is amazing," Romney could be seen saying to his wife as the couple took the stage. Ann Romney, ever her husband's more emotive half, was visibly affected by the crowd's welcome.

    "I am just so moved," Ann Romney said. "It’s so emotional to be here and have this kind of reception from Ohio, a state that is going to make the next president of the United States."

    Ohio may do just that on Tuesday, with campaign advisers and analysts from both parties predicting that as goes Ohio, so goes the White House. Most public polls show Romney trailing the president here by several points.

    Both candidates campaigned here Monday, and Romney will return Tuesday to visit a campaign office in Cleveland to inspire volunteers and staff and to promote the Republican get-out-the-vote effort.

    "You know, what makes this rally and all your work so inspiring is that you are here because you care about America. This campaign is about America and the future we are going to leave to our children," Romney said. "We thank you, and we ask you to stay at it all the way until victory on Tuesday night is clear!”

  • Romney reaches out to independent voters in Ohio

    The focus remains on Ohio, but both candidates raced through battleground states in the final sprint to Election Day. Mitt Romney visited seven states where he conducted eight events. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    CLEVELAND, Ohio – The clock ticking down in this critical state, Mitt Romney spent his Sunday afternoon rally in Cleveland reaching out to the independent voters he'll need to claim victory on Tuesday, saying that President Barack Obama has refused to listen to voices like theirs.

    “Four years ago, let’s look at the promises the president made. He promised to do so very much, but frankly he fell so very short. He promised to be a post-partisan president, but he’s been most partisan, he’s been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing," Romney said. "And by the way, it’s not only Republicans that he refused to listen to; he also refused to listen to independent voices."

    President Barack Obama is calling on his biggest supporters and surrogates in the final two days before Election Day. His focus remains on Ohio, which offers 18 electoral votes. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.

    "You’ve watched what’s happened in this country over the last four years with an independent voice," Romney said. "You hoped that President Obama would live up to his promise to bring people together to solve big problems, but he hasn’t. And I will.”

    The calculated appeal to independents, similar in every recitation of the Romney closing argument, takes on additional importance here in Ohio, where a poll out this morning conducted by The Columbus Dispatch newspaper shows President Obama ahead of Romney, 50 percent to 48 percent, in the Buckeye state overall, helped by winning unaffiliated voters by ten points.

    Romney advisers say their polling shows the former Massachusetts governor winning independent voters, and they argue that whoever wins independent voters almost certainly wins Ohio.

    A new NBC poll should give both presidential campaigns reason to hope. Obama comes in at 48 percent; Romney at 47 percent. Taking Sandy into account, 80 percent in the Northeast said they approved of the president's handling of Superstorm Sandy. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    With that mindset, closing argument promises to focus on economic issues and to work beyond partisan boundaries are designed to resonate.

    "I won't spend any of my efforts trying to pass partisan legislation that won't help with economic growth," Romney told the roughly 6,000 supporters who gathered to hear his remarks on Sunday afternoon.

    Democrats have scoffed at Romney's claim of a record of bipartisanship, or that he would be better than President Obama at reaching across aisle. They cite that Romney issued more than 800 vetoes during his time as governor in Massachusetts, where the state legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic.

     

     

  • Romney scraps Virginia campaign swing as Hurricane Sandy nears

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

    KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- The approach of Hurricane Sandy along the East Coast forced Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to scrap a planned campaign swing Sunday in Virginia, rerouting the GOP contender to the battleground state of Ohio instead.

    "I was looking forward to being in Virginia tomorrow but you know the hurricane is headed up there, and I just spoke with the governor, Governor [Bob]  McDonnell, and the governor and I talked about that. He said, you know, the first responders really need to focus on preparation for the storm, so we’re not going to be able to be in Virginia tomorrow, we’re going to Ohio instead," Romney told some 4000 supporters at a rally here Saturday.

    The Romney campaign had planned three stops in major markets on Sunday, with rallies in Sterling, Richmond and Virginia Beach, but after canceling the Virginia Beach rally on Friday, the campaign took what an aide said was a "precautionary measure" in cancelling the other two stops. Romney will join his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan for three stops in Ohio Sunday instead.

    In Virginia, Romney-Ryan and Victory offices were accepting donations of bottled water and non-perishable food such as beef jerky, granola bars and peanut butter for distribution to relief centers.  

    A Romney aide said the campaign planned to reschedule the Old Dominion swing.

    Romney urged his Florida supporters, who know something about major storms, to keep thinking about those in the Sandy's path.

    "I hope you'll keep the folks in Virginia and New Jersey and New York and all along the coast in your minds and in your hearts," Romney said. "You know how tough these hurricanes can be and our hearts go out to them."

    Vice President Joe Biden also canceled a planned rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach, and President Barack Obama changed his travel plans ahead of the storm, leaving for planned campaign events in Florida on Sunday night instead of Monday morning. The Obama campaign has canceled a rally with Michelle Obama in New Hampshire on Tuesday as well, anticipating the effects of the storm may continue even then.

    Traveling with Romney on Saturday, Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said he wasn't concerned about the electoral effect of the storm on Florida or elsewhere, but was focused on people.

    "Our first concern is with the people that are in the path of the storm. Obviously, that is the No. 1 concern," Rubiotold reporters on the Romney campaign plane between stops in Florida. "Beyond that, I haven’t had time to think about what impact it's going to have on the campaign. I think that’s like a secondary concern at this point."

  • Politics of auto bailout haunt Romney in Northwest Ohio

    Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

    Mitt Romney holds a rally at Defiance High School in Defiance, Ohio, on Thursday.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

     

    DEFIANCE, Ohio – Under the bright lights of a high school football field here in Northwest Ohio, Mitt Romney's opposition to the 2009 auto bailout reared its head again as a campaign issue that could help decide the result of this critical swing state.   

     Sen. Rob Portman, introducing Romney, brought up the bailout, telling a crowd of more than 10,000 supporters that "we need to talk about this tonight" in an effort to clear up what he said were dishonest attacks by the president at the last debate.   

    "First, it was President Obama who actually took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy. That’s a fact," Portman said. "Second, Mitt Romney did propose government help. He proposed government guarantees for loans. He proposed the government backing up the warranties, and folks, all the independent fact checkers who have looked at this agree: President Obama was wrong."

     

     

    While on the trail today, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused President Obama's campaign of not having a plan, and ignored questions about Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's controversial remarks on rape. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

     

    Romney did not mention the bailout explicitly, but did voice his support for the U.S. auto industry, saying he would stand up to China on trade issues that affect auto companies and mentioning reports today that automaker Jeep was considering moving its operations entirely overseas.  

     "I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers of this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it’s fair, America will win," Romney said.   

     Democrats quickly seized on any mention of the auto industry to reinforce Obama's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, looking to capitalize on an issue they believe is particularly resonant among voters in this corner of Ohio.  

    "While Barack Obama bet on the American worker and saved the American auto industry and more than one million jobs, Mitt Romney would have just ‘let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Voters in Ohio won’t forget how—at a make or break moment for one of America’s key industries—Mitt Romney would have turned his back and watched GM and Chrysler go under," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement.  

     The Obama campaign also forwarded reporters a statement from a Chrysler spokesperson claiming there were never plans to move assembly lines to China.   

    “Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation,” Gualberto Ranieri, a spokesman for Chrysler said in the statement posted on the automakers' blog.

    Slideshow: On the campaign trail

    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

    Launch slideshow

    Coincidentally, after the Thursday night rally, a group of Detroit newspapers announced they would be endorsing President Obama, shredding Romney for his position in opposition to the bailout. 

     "It is an unforgivable and unconscionable [sic] position by a man with the audacity to claim himself a son of Detroit. Romney may have grown up here, but he left long ago," the editorial on MLive.com read in part.

    All this serves to highlight how the auto bailout legacy continues to be a political minefield for Romney here in the industrial Midwest.  

     On Friday, Romney will return to safer ground in Iowa where he is scheduled to deliver a speech on the economy, debt and deficits, which could serve as a summation of his views on the election's most important issue as the campaign moves into its final full week.  

  • Romney: Election outcome will be defining for American families

    Charles Dharapak / AP

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns at the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Mitt Romney continued Wednesday night to lay out what appears to be his campaign's closing argument, describing this election as a defining one not just for the country, but for individual families.

    "This is a defining election – defining for the nation but also defining for your family," Romney told a crowd of some 2,300 supporters gathered in an airplane hangar here. "I say that because it will make a difference, this election will. A difference for the nation, a difference for the families of the nation and a difference for your own family."

    Slideshow: On the Trail

    Romney then laid out his case against President Barack Obama in terms of how families might be affected by a second Obama term – a rhetorical tactic he began earlier in Reno earlier in the day. The former Massachusetts governor said Obamacare would result in medical providers refusing Medicare to seniors, wages would stagnate and children would attend failing schools – courtesy, he said, of Obama’s union allies.

    "You see the teachers union is there, but the PTA doesn't have a union, and parents don't have unions and kids don't have unions," Romney said. "When I'm elected president we're going to make sure we have a voice for the kids of America and their parents and the teachers."

    Later, Romney wove those narratives together to make a case for why this election is so important.

    "It matters to those seniors that want good health care. It matters to those in their 40s and 50s and 60s that are earning money for their retirement or for their families," Romney said. "It matters for kids coming out of school looking for a job. It matters for young kids that want to have the best education possible."

    Despite most public polls showing the president leading Romney in Iowa and other Midwestern battleground states where the election may hinge, an optimistic Romney again claimed momentum coming off the three presidential debates and declared flatly of the election overall: "We are going to win, by the way." 

    Slideshow: On the campaign trail

    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

    Launch slideshow

  • Post-debate, Romney focuses on economy; no mention of Libya

    After Tuesday's fiery presidential debate, the heated arguments between GOP candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama showed no signs of cooling on the stump as they tried to cast each other as economic threats to voters in Ohio, Iowa and Virginia. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

     

    LEESBURG, Va. – In two appearances Wednesday in the critical battleground state of Virginia, Mitt Romney focused on what he called the president's lack of a second term agenda, while avoiding Libya, a major flashpoint from Tuesday night's debate. 

    "I think it’s interesting that the president still doesn’t have an agenda for a second term. Don’t you think that it’s time for him to finally put together a vision of what he’d do in the next four years if he were elected?" Romney said in Chesapeake, Va. on Wednesday afternoon.

    At an evening event in Northern Virginia, Romney continued to work that theme, occasionally revisiting moments from the debate – as President Barack Obama did on the stump after the first debate – with snappier retorts.

    "I just have to mention, I remember last night the president also saying about energy," Romney recalled before some 8,000 supporters Wednesday night. "He said, you know, we built pipelines that would go around the earth, and I thought, ‘It's just the one that comes from Canada with the oil is the one that we want, you see?’ And that's the one I'm going to get."

    Libya went unmentioned in either appearance on Wednesday.

    Alex Brandon / AP

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign event in front of a barn at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Va. on Wednesday.

    The timeline of the attacks and the Obama administration’s response seemed to trip Romney during the debate.  

    Conservatives had previously said the attacks show the White House’s weakness in terms of foreign policy, and both campaigns spent much of Tuesday night's spin room session with reporters re-litigating the finer points of the administration's declaration of the attack as an act of terror.

    "With 20 days left, today was a good day to hammer home the contrast between a candidate who has a plan to fix the economy in Governor Romney and a candidate who doesn't have a record to run on or a plan for the future, that being President Obama," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden said when asked why Romney didn't talk about Libya Wednesday. "Libya is still an issue with many voters, particularly given the conflicting statements from the president and his administration about the nature of the attack. The American people still have unanswered questions."

    Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki offered a different view while discussing the debate with reporters aboard Air Force One today, suggesting that Obama's command of the Libya questions in Tuesday's debate might have shut down conversation on the issue -- for now.

    "Our view is that the president – the back-and-forth on Libya last night was one of the best moments for the president, one of the best moments in recent debate history," Psaki said. "And that's because the president made clear that being commander-in-chief is about being a leader. It’s not about political gamesmanship." 

    Slideshow: On the campaign trail

    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

    Launch slideshow

    With a foreign policy debate coming Monday, Romney did make a point of mentioning other global issues at his second stop Wednesday, highlighting the importance of keeping America's military strong and ticking off a handful of world trouble spots he rarely mentions in a typical stump speech. 

    "I look around the world at North Korea, with its nuclear capability and a very strange dictator. I look at what’s happening throughout the Middle East and Pakistan," Romney said. "I look around North Africa now, with north Mali having been taken by an al-Qaida affiliate, and I recognize the world continues to be dangerous, and the decisions we make now about our military will determine our ability to defend ourselves in the future."

     

  • Romney, Ryan campaign in Ohio, revel over VP debate

    Jamie Sabau / Getty Images

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, speak on stage Friday at a rally in Lancaster, Ohio.

    By NBC’s Alex Moe and Garrett Haake

    LANCASTER, Ohio — Campaigning with his running mate on Friday in the battleground state of Ohio, Mitt Romney praised Paul Ryan’s performance the previous night in the vice presidential debate.

    "We got to watch this guy debate and there was one person on the stage with thoughtfulness, who was respectful, who was steady and poised. There is one person on that stage you’d want to be with if there were a crisis — it is this man right here," Romney said at sunset in the Lancaster Town Square.

    Ryan also mentioned how he squared off with Vice President Joe Biden: "You have a huge choice to make. We have a big choice to make. You know, I think we saw a sign of it last night just like we saw it a week ago. You see, they are offering no new ideas. The president is simply saying more of the same. Hope and change has become attack and blame."

    Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, Romney’s debate partner, joined in the debate chatter as well, telling the crowd: "We’ve had two great debates in the last eight days."

    President Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman, Lis Smith, disagreed with the Republican’s assessment of Thursday night’s debate in Danville, Ky.

    "Mitt Romney and Congressman Ryan were awfully defensive about last night’s debate at their event in Ohio. It’s no surprise why -- Vice President Biden unmasked their real agenda," she wrote in a statement.

    Romney and Ryan last campaigned together in another crucial state — Virginia — and that rally was the night following Romney’s first presidential debate.

    The GOP ticket is continuing to crisscross the country as recent poll numbers show a tightening race.

    "I've had the fun of going back and forth across Ohio and this week I was also in Florida and Iowa; I was in North Carolina, in Virginia and, you know what, there is a growing crescendo of enthusiasm people recognize that this is not an ordinary campaign; this is a critical time for the country; there is more energy and passion; people are getting behind this campaign; we're taking back this country," the Republican presidential nominee told the several-thousand person crowd Friday night.

    While Romney and Ryan campaign separately Saturday, both candidates remain in the Buckeye State – only further emphasizing the significance of the Midwestern state on Nov. 6th.

  • In foreign policy speech, Romney will encourage military spending, Syria intervention

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

    Updated at 8:40a.m.ET: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – In a major foreign policy speech Monday Mitt Romney will attempt to stake out a more activist public position than President Barack Obama on supporting the rebels in Syria's civil war. Romney plans to say that he believes in working with partner nations to arm rebels fighting the government of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad.

    Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

    Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

    Launch slideshow

    He would equip the rebels – “who share our values” -- with heavy weapons to take out "tanks, helicopters and fighter jets," according to the remarks. The Obama administration has refrained from doing so out of concern that the weapons would end up in terrorist hands, according to The New York Times.

    Romney will also argue that the U.S. must support the rebels to develop influence and good relations with the Syria’s future leaders.

    Slideshow: On the campaign trail

    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

    Launch slideshow

    Syria is just one area Romney will touch on in a speech in which the Republican nominee will attempt to portray himself as a leader firmly in the peace-through-strength tradition of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, while casting President Obama as an ineffective leader on a dangerous and constantly-evolving world stage.

    Related: Who are the Syrian rebels?

    Romney will deliver a 30-minute address, titled "The Mantle of Leadership," later Monday at the Virginia Military Institute, his 10th address on the topic of foreign policy since summer 2011.

    Recommended: Obama urges supporters not to lose enthusiasm

    The former Massachusetts governor's speech, like the others before it, will focus on a vision of peace through strength. It will include new details on how Romney would address current global hotspots and repeat regular stump speech staples – such as the importance of averting planned defense cuts, expanding and reinvesting in the U.S. military and working closely with allies abroad, especially Israel.

    In prepared remarks released Sunday to reporters, Romney laid out global issues where his campaign hopes to draw "great contrast" with Obama – notably on Libya, Syria and Egypt.

    Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

    Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

    From governor's son to presidential contender, a look at the life of Republican Mitt Romney.

    Launch slideshow

    The speech links the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last month to al-Qaida, a position Romney has rarely engaged in on the campaign trail. Romney calls the attack "likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001," and "the deliberate work of terrorists." The attack was not, he says, a spontaneous response to a movie trailer maligning the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, as the Obama administration initially said.

    As he did at the Clinton Global Initiative last month, Romney will argue that U.S. aid to Egypt should be linked with promises from Egyptian leaders to uphold the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and to protect minorities, including the country’s Coptic Christians.

    Romney, who offended some Palestinians with remarks he made in Israel suggesting the economic disparities between the Palestinian territories and Israel were based in part on cultural differences, will also promise to "recommit" to helping form a democratic Palestinian state alongside Israel.

    "In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew," say Romney’s prepared remarks.

    On the infamous "47 percent" tape of a Florida fundraising event in May, Romney predicted the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would "remain [an] unsolved problem."

    "We have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it," Romney said at the May fundraiser, comparing the peace process to the decades-long standoff between China and Taiwan. "And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately somehow, something will happen to resolve it."

    During a Sunday conference call with reporters, Romney foreign policy advisers said Monday’s foreign policy speech was meant to align Romney with the foreign policy tradition of Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan and George Marshall.

    "If you look at Harry Truman and John Kennedy and the use of power by Bill Clinton in his second term that is a much different approach than Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama so I do think it’s a bipartisan tradition, it’s a recognition that strength is not provocative, its weakness that’s provocative," former Ambassador Rich Williamson, a Romney foreign policy adviser, said on the call. "There’s a fundamental difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and that’s part of the choice that American voters will be asked to make."

    Democrats fired back preemptively at that characterization.

    "Mainstream foreign policy isn't what Mitt Romney is putting forward: having plans to start wars but not end them; wanting to keep 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely; exploding our defense spending to levels the Pentagon has not asked for, with no way to pay for it; insulting our allies and partners around the world on the campaign trail; and calling Russia our number-one geopolitical foe," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement Sunday. "If that's where Mitt Romney thinks the mainstream is, he needs to find a better compass."

    Aboard Air Force One Sunday, Jen Psaki, the Obama campaign's traveling press secretary, was more cutting when asked her views on the speech.

    "We're not going to be lectured by someone who has been an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy every time he's dipped his toe in the foreign policy waters," Psaki told reporters. "The only person who has offended Europe more is probably Chevy Chase."

  • Romney gets personal at Florida rally

    The presidential race heated up as Mitt Romney continued his assault of President Obama's record in Florida, saying that a 7.8 percent unemployment rate is nothing to celebrate. NBC's Ron Mott reports.

     

    By NBC's Garrett Haake

     

     

    PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Mitt Romney concluded a three-day Florida campaign swing with one of his largest crowds of the campaign season packing a town square to hear his retooled stump speech, which now highlights the sometimes-rigid candidate's personal side.

    "Now I’m optimistic – I want you to know that great days are ahead," Romney said Sunday before more than 10,000 supporters. "I know something about great human beings in this country. It’s that that gives me the confidence that our future will be so bright, because I’ve seen how Americans respond to challenge – and even to tragedy."

    Romney then repeated three tales of courage in the face of death and tragedy that he debuted days ago in this critical battleground state.

    The stories, told in succession, have quickly become a staple of Romney's stump speech and are designed to highlight the candidate's personal compassion.

    One story even makes note of Romney's time as a pastor of a Massachusetts ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – a period once all but off limits for Romney, who rarely spoke of his Mormon religion in the early months of the campaign.

    “I was serving as a pastor in my congregation at church and the – young fellow in our ward named David Oparowski, his parents from Medford, Massachusetts – his dad a firefighter, his mom a stay at home mom. They raised their two sons. But at age 14, David contracted leukemia and became very, very ill," Romney said. "It was clear that there was no good conclusion to this leukemia."

    Romney ends the story of David's untimely death with a recitation of the phrase: "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose," borrowed from the NBC’s high school football drama, "Friday Night Lights." That phrase, with the "can't lose" removed, also appeared in a campaign fundraising email from Ann Romney on Sunday.

    The former Massachusetts governor also hit all five points of his economic plan. He also noted that his plan would protect Medicare for current seniors and reform it for the future.

    Given the heated battle for the senior vote here in Florida, the Obama campaign quickly fired back on Medicare reform.

    "Mitt Romney would turn Medicare into a voucher program and increase costs for retirees by more than $6,000,” Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement. “The truth hurts – especially for the middle class families who would suffer under Romney’s policies.”

  • Romney, Ryan rally to build on debate momentum in Virginia

    Steve Helber / AP

    Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wave to supporters during a rally in Fishersville, Va., Oct. 4.

     

    By NBC's Garrett Haake and Alex Moe

    FISHERSVILLE, Va. – Capitalizing on momentum from Wednesday night's debate, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan whipped up their base here in rural Virginia with a raucous rally complete with fireworks, live music and pointed new attack lines aimed at their Democratic opponents.

    "I got the chance to ask the president questions that people across the country have wanted to ask him, such as why is it that he pushed Obamacare at a time when we had 23 million people out of work? I asked why is it that the middle class is still buried in this country – why is it we have 23 million people out of work?" Romney said, ticking off several more debate topics. "I asked him those questions and you – you heard his answers."

    Romney wove highlights from the debate into his traditional stump speech, revisiting the showdown that was watched by 62 million Americans.

    "What you didn't hear last night from the president is why it is the next four years are possibly going to be better than the last four years. He doesn't have a way to explain that, because he has the same policies for the next four years as he had for the last four years," Romney said. "He said go forward. I call it forewarned, all right?"

    Ryan also weighed in on the debate for the first time, predictably praising the man at the top of the GOP ticket.

    “Every now and then, we see a glimpse into the future. Last night, we saw a clear picture. We saw a clear choice," Ryan said. "Last night, America got to see the man I know: a leader, a decisive man, an optimistic man, a man with a plan to get people back to work and to protect our freedoms.”

    Thursday's event showed a tilt back toward the Republican base. Country music star Trace Adkins warmed up the crowd with a 30-minute set, and the National Rifle Association officially bestowed its endorsement of the Romney/Ryan ticket.

    “We stand on the edge of an Obama cliff with our freedom. If President Obama gets re-elected, he’s going to have one to three Supreme Court appointments," warned Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president.  "And I guarantee you this: If that happens – one to three more Sotomayors and Kagan – we can kiss our constitutional right to own a firearm in the United States goodbye along with a lot of the rest of our freedoms. And we can’t let that happen.”

    Slideshow: On the campaign trail

    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

    Launch slideshow

    With the first presidential debate out of the way, the focus turns to the vice presidential debate next Tuesday in Kentucky.

    On Thursday, Romney and Ryan pounced on the vice president's statement earlier in the day that Democrats aimed to repeal the so-called Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

    “Last night President Obama made it very clear he’s going to raise taxes. Today, Vice President Joe Biden made it even more clear,” Ryan said. “In Iowa … he asked if he and President Obama wanted a trillion dollar tax hike and his response to himself was, ‘Yes we do.’ That’s a direct quote, friends. Well, Virginia – no, we don’t!”

    Romney piled onto his running mate’s remarks: "The vice president blurted out the truth today. They plan on raising taxes on the American people, and that will kill jobs. We will not let that happen. We want to create jobs, not kill jobs in this country.”

    Democrats cried foul at that and other comments by Romney touting his own tax plan and accusing the President of trying to raise taxes on middle class Americans.

    "Clearly, Mitt Romney thinks facts don’t matter – but the hard-working Americans who he’d punish with his policies do,” said Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith, who accused Romney of a "streak of dishonesty."

    As the weekend approaches, Romney continues to campaign in Virginia before heading to the battleground state of Florida, while Ryan continues to prep for the debate and raise money for the GOP ticket.

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