LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – With just one week until Mitt Romney takes the stage at the GOP convention in Tampa, his campaign rolled out the candidate's energy policy -- one that they hope illustrates stark differences with President Obama, and which excites middle class voters looking for an economic boost.

The Romney policy, spelled out in a white paper and on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, focuses on developing domestic fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal - in large part by shifting federal responsibilities to the states, and by expanding exploration and production nationwide. Romney will outline the policy in oil-rich New Mexico on Thursday.

Romney's plan would make states the custodian of energy production on federal lands within their borders and allow them to implement their own federally-approved leasing practices. Such a move would effectively shift responsibility for permitting, leasing and environmental regulation to states, with the hope of speeding energy development by cutting red tape.

Romney's plan calls for reaching North American energy independence by 2020, primarily through expansion of traditional fossil fuels. The United States is currently the world's third largest oil producer, which Romney would hope to expand. The U.S. also currently imports more than half its oil from countries in the Western Hemisphere, with Canada making up a 29-percent share. Those imports could be increased through greater cooperation and by the immediate approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and similar projects.

"The challenge in getting there is not about the resources we have, it’s not about the technology we have, it’s about the government that we have," said Oren Cass, Romney's domestic policy director. "And the real question is are we going to pursue the political reforms that will allow us to develop the resources to their fullest?"

Those reforms will also include greenlighting increased offshore drilling, slowed after 2009's BP oil spill disaster, particularly off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina where Romney's advisers argue there is already widespread support for increased offshore drilling.

"One of the things that's detailed here in the policy under the offshore section is to establish the most aggressive leasing plan ever put forward, as compared to President Obama's, which was the least aggressive ever put forward," Cass told reporters.

The GOP challenger's plan pays little attention to renewable fuels like wind and solar power, long championed by Democrats, including Obama, who has touted green jobs creation as a major part of his own economic and energy plans.

Romney's plan, in contrast, includes continued research support for alternative fuels, but would have wind and solar generation succeed or fail on their own, without government subsidies or loan guarantees, a politically unpopular position in some wind and solar producing states like Iowa and Colorado, but one Romney's advisers said they believed could be overcome by the overall economic benefits of their plan.

President Obama makes a similar argument about continued oil industry tax subsidies, arguing that the highly profitable major oil companies don't need the tax breaks, the extension of which is supported by Romney.

Romney is expected to further outline his energy plan in remarks later today in New Mexico, the sixth largest oil producing state in the country, pumping roughly 3-percent of the nation's oil on an annual basis, according to the Energy Information Administration.

GOFFSTOWN, NH -- With 10 American troops killed fighting in Afghanistan in the last two weeks alone, America’s decade-long war was front and center Monday morning during Mitt Romney’s 100^th town hall as the GOP ticket was asked to weigh in by a veteran about what they would do with the “damn mess in Afghanistan.”

“I will address the American people about these issues and with regards to Afghanistan," Romney contended before a crowd of about 3,500. "I will do everything in my power to transition from our military to their military as soon as possible, bring our men and women home and do so in a way consistent with our mission which is to keep Afghanistan from being overrun by a new entity that would allow Afghanistan to be a launching point for terror again like it was on 9/11."

Romney has previously criticized Obama setting a timeline, then appeared to shift on that last month. It indicated support for the 2014 timeline, but accused the president of being for it for political reasons. 

Romney said the president should be addressing the nation on a regular basis during war time but failed to mention that the President has, in fact, updated the country on affairs abroad several times, including just this past May on national television from Afghanistan.

“We will work with the Afghans to determine what support they need to accomplish two narrow security missions beyond 2014: counter-terrorism and continued training," the president told troops on May 1. "But we will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains. That will be the job of the Afghan people."

In his first appearance in the Granite State during the 2012 cycle, presumptive GOP nominee Paul Ryan put his national security knowledge on display, as well.

“And when you give the military a specific mission and the military tells you, here is what we need to complete this mission, to keep our soldiers, sailors, airman, and Marines safe, you give them what they ask for. It is very important,” said Ryan, who went on to criticize Obama’s troop drawdown in the middle of the fighting season.

Many have raised questions around the seven-term Wisconsin congressman’s foreign-policy background since he was selected as Romney’s VP choice just 10 days ago. Although Romney has also said that listening to commanders on the ground is vital, he has also echoed support for the 2014 timeline. Ryan's statement seems at odds with that support of a timeline.

Today, Ryan not only weighed in on Afghanistan, but fielded a question on Israel and Iran too.

“It is very vital and important that the signals we send, that the leadership we provide, that we strengthen our relationship with our allies, that we improve this relationship, which has deteriorated so much under this president, so that our allies in this region are negotiating from a position of strength and not being undercut by the United States of America when they’re trying to arrive at peace,” he said noting Israel is America’s strongest allies.

The turn to foreign policy today comes as violence in Afghanistan has ticked up. The campaign has also recently taken an increasingly negative tone, with both campaigns levying charges of dishonesty in their advertising and on the stump. Today, Romney took a shot at the president for what one questioner said were dishonest attacks against Romney on his tax record.

“It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth, and it has been – it has been sad and disappointing,” Romney told the crowd in the quad at St. Anselm’s College. “I will not raise taxes on the American people, I will not raise taxes on middle income Americans, we’re going to make sure that Americans have the money to pay their bills, we’re not going to raise taxes, that slows down growth, it kills jobs, we’re going to get this economy going, and Mr. President, stop saying something that’s not the truth.”

Romney, though, is running an ad accusing the president of wanting to get rid of work requirements in welfare, a charge that has been widely discredited. The Romney campaign has not only created one version of this ad, but three, including one just this morning.

After making this joint appearance to kick off the last full week before the Republican National Committee convention, Romney and Ryan will now campaign separately -- Romney heads to New Orleans, LA, and Ryan to Pittsburgh, PA.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Mitt Romney returned to the campaign trail in this critical swing state Monday morning without his new running mate, but armed with new rhetoric accusing President Obama of running a dishonest campaign meant to deceive the American people.

"With a record, which has been as disappointing as the record that he’s demonstrated over the past four years, the president’s campaign has resorted to a very unusual tactic," Romney said. "It’s smear. It’s dirt. It’s distortion. It’s deception. it’s dishonesty. It diminishes the-- it diminishes the office of the presidency itself."

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign rally at Flagler College on Aug. 13 in St Augustine, Fla.

With those remarks, Romney may have been pre-butting Democratic attacks on his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan's Medicare overhaul plan would turn Medicare into a voucher or "premium support" program for those that would qualify for Medicare in 10 years (those 55 and younger). The plan would cap the amount that can be spent, prompting critics to say it would likely shift the burden, or the rest of the cost, to seniors.

The plan has become a lightning rod on both sides of the aisle. Romney contrasted the Republican ticket's plan with what he claimed were $700 billion in cuts to Medicare as part of the president's healthcare reform act. 

But as First Read wrote this morning: "What Obama did under the health care law was reduce the rate of growth in non-essential services (like Medicare Advantage), as well as increase premiums for higher-income recipients. That doesn't affect the Medicare benefits that current/future seniors receive."

"We want to make sure we preserve and protect Medicare," Romney claimed.

Romney supporters at the morning event here downplayed the negative effect a renewed focus on Medicare reform might have here in Florida, with its large voting block of senior citizens.

"It's going to change, but its not going to change drastically and nobody is going to be deprived," said retired lawyer Bill Graham, a Romney supporter. "Now, how that's coming about in Ryan's plan? At least he's got a plan. At least he's got something that can be laid out and looked at. "

This is going to be Democrats' challenge -- to convince people that what they're saying about the Ryan plan is actually true. But Democrats also have to be careful not to overplay their hand. On MSNBC's The Daily Rundown this morning, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that his father, who's 83, would be getting a voucher.

Todd pointed out that's false. “Your father is not going to get that, because they’re not going to do anything to him" because the plan would not affect those older than 55.

Phebe Wehr, a retiree from St. Augustine, said Romney and Ryan needed to be much more specific in selling their plan to current seniors.

"People are out there saying on their placards, 'Don't take away my Medicare;' they won't be," Wehr said. "So, they have to make that a lot clearer. I think Ryan's programs are going to be misunderstood."

Romney also used some new language to pump up the energy level today, which was diminished from Sunday night's rallies in part by slow security lines which left hundreds of supporters on the sidewalk outside the metal detectors and single security checkpoint.

"I know there are people around the world who are always critical of America, have something negative to say, say our greatest days are in the past. Baloney," Romney said. "We just won more Olympic medals than any other nation on Earth. We also just, we just landed on Mars and took a good look at what's going on there. And I know the Chinese are planning on going to the moon, and I hope they have a good experience doing that, and I hope they stop in and take a look at our flag that was put there 43 years ago!"

Romney has been critical of President Obama on space. At an NBC debate in Tampa during the GOP primary he said space should be a "priority." But he didn't specify how much he would spend, whether he would increase or decrease NASA's budget, but instead called for a "collaborative" effort between government, commercial enterprise, and universities.

At another debate, Romney mocked Newt Gingrich's moon colony idea, but also lamented the idea of candidates going state to state with big promises.

"The Speaker comes here to Florida, wants to spend untold amount of money having a colony on the moon," Romney said. "I know it's very exciting on the Space Coast. ... Look, this idea of going state to state and promising what people want to hear, promising billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to make people happy, that's what got us into the trouble we're in now. We've got to say no to this kind of spending."

Also part of the program today -- Florida's junior Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Romney admitted was vetted for the vice-presidential slot, but was passed over in favor of Ryan, a decision about which some Floridians were circumspect.

"I thought if he wanted to win he should have picked Marco Rubio," said Paul Merana, 70, a retired military officer. "But Paul Ryan is a good second choice."

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.

DES MOINES, Iowa, and WASHINGTON -- For a second consecutive day, Mitt Romney and his allies accused President Obama of trying to undermine bipartisan welfare reform by removing the requirement that recipients work to receive payments, an attack that has many independent fact checkers, as well as Democrats, crying foul.

"Back at that time, then-Sen. Obama, was opposed to putting work together with welfare," Romney said of the bipartisan 1996 welfare reform law, passed when President Obama was an Illinois state senator. "Now he’s president. Just a few days ago, he put that original intent in place. With a very careful executive action he removed the requirement of work from welfare. It is wrong to make any change that would make America more of a nation of government dependency. We must restore it and I will restore work in welfare.”

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney emerges from a corn field with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey while touring the farm of Lemar Koethe.

First Read and independent fact-checkers called the attack that Obama was trying to "gut" the work requirement in welfare -- debuted by Romney yesterday in a television ad and on the stump -- misleading.

Former President Bill Clinton issued a statement last night also calling the charge "not true." "The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach," Clinton said in a statement.

As far as whether Obama was for or against welfare reform in 1996, there's fodder for both sides. Obama said then he would not have voted for the federal version, but, since it had passed, co-sponsored Illinois' version to adapt to the law.

The Romney campaign's policy director Lanhee Chen yesterday charged in a memo that Obama "took to the floor of the Illinois state senate to announce his opposition. A devoted believer in old-school, big-government liberalism, Mr. Obama had no interest in embracing the welfare reform package that linked welfare to work. Now as president, with an economy struggling, an election looming, and a dispirited liberal base in need of encouragement, he has decided to turn back the clock."

But the Obama campaign's policy director James Kvaal shot back yesterday on a campaign conference call with reporters. “As a state senator he worked with Republicans in Illinois to implement welfare reform," Kvaal said. "Back then his work earned him praise from Republicans in the state senate. One of whom thanked him for his bipartisan support and work to get welfare reform done in Illinois.”

Politifact seemed to settle this back in August of 2008 after Michelle Obama claimed of her husband, "It's what he did in the Illinois Senate, moving people from welfare to jobs...."

Politifact called her statement "mostly true" with some caveats:

"President Bill Clinton and Congress significantly overhauled welfare in 1996, requiring recipients to work and setting time limits on benefits. The states in turn had to change their laws to meet the new federal requirements. In 1997, Obama signed up as a chief co-sponsor (one of five in the Senate) on Illinois' version of the legislation. But the Illinois governor at the time, Republican Jim Edgar, got a lot of credit as well. Press reports from the time referred to the plan as 'the Edgar plan.' This isn't the first time Obama has referred to Illinois laws as if he passed them singlehandedly.

"Also, in floor remarks from the time, Obama expressed less than full support for the federal legislation. He was particularly concerned that people removed from welfare would be able to receive training so they could earn a living wage.

" 'I am not a defender of the status quo with respect to welfare,' Obama said on the Illinois Senate floor. 'Having said that, I probably would not have supported the federal legislation, because I think it had some problems. But I'm a strong believer in making lemonade out of lemons. ... I think this is a good start, and I urge support of this bill.'

"Nevertheless, the legislation's primary role was welfare reform, and the legislative record shows that Obama had a leadership role in getting it passed."

Before an audience of several hundred supporters in a high school auditorium here, Romney doubled down on the welfare attacks, calibrated to appeal to white middle- and working-class voters, insisting that the president was intent on creating a culture of dependency in America. 

"Of course we take care of, in America, the people who can’t take care of themselves," Romney said. "When it comes to the spirit of America, I want to restore the spirit of independence. I do not want to install a spirit of dependence on government. And that’s the direction we’re going.”

In a conference call with reporters timed for the conclusion of Romney's remarks, former house speaker Newt Gingrich -- a co-architect of the welfare reform plan, along with Clinton -- praised the former president while attacking the current president, and said he felt the welfare reform issue was a good one for Romney to focus on to demonstrate stark differences between the two parties.

"In many ways Obama is the anti-Clinton. Clinton was trying to move the party to the center, Obama is moving it to the left," Gingrich told reporters, then pivoting to next month's Democratic convention, where Clinton is expected to speak before president Obama. He urged wavering Democrats and independent voters to consider "how much weaker and less effective a President Obama is than the man who is nominating him."

BOWLING GREEN, OH -- Mitt Romney looked to get back on his economic message and to put President Obama on the defensive today, lashing out at the administration for not convening a meeting of his jobs council in more than six months.

Evan Vucci / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gestures during a campaign stop on July 18 in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Romney also criticized the president for what he claimed was Obama's attempts to "denigrate and diminish" individual success.

"In the last six months, [Obama] has held 100 fundraisers and guess how many meetings he has had with his jobs council. None. Zero," Romney said. "Zero in the last six months, so it makes it very clear where his priorities are. His priority is not creating jobs for the American people. His priority is trying to keep his own job and that's why he is going to lose it."

The Obama campaign did not refute Romney's claim directly, but said the president has offered a jobs plan which "incorporates ideas from the Jobs Council," a non-partisan group of business leaders whose stated mission is to provide "non-partisan advice to the President on continuing to strengthen the Nation's economy."

The Romney campaign does not divulge it's complete fundraising schedule, making a direct fundraising comparison impossible.

Romney also hammered the president -- for a second-straight day -- over the president's comments Friday in which the president said (in part of a larger argument about the importance of education and infrastructure to the success of business): “If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

"Barack Obama's attempt to denigrate and diminish the achievement of the individual, diminishes us all," Romney said. "We all, of course, recognize the power of all of us working together. We're a united nation. He divides us. He tries to divide America, tear America apart. He tries to diminish those who have been successful in one walk of life or another. It's simply wrong."

Romney also fed the vice-presidential rumor mill today, telling a questioner here that he has not yet made a vice presidential selection, but identifying one key characteristic of his eventual pick.

"I can assure you that even though I have not chosen the person who will be my vice president, that person will be a conservative. They will believe in conservative principles," Romney said in response to the first question at today's town hall.

As is often the case at town hall events like this one, the crowd itself became part of the story today, when one questioner referred to President Obama as a "monster" in her question.

"That’s not a term I would use," Romney told the woman.

Romney also engaged in a bit of audience participation here today, urging business owners to stand up and be applauded for creating jobs, and commenting on signs that dotted the venue here, painted with slogans like "I built my own business."

"These are fun," Romney said, reading from the signs. "‘I created my business, not the government.’ These are fun. These are fun signs here. You guys in back can’t see them.  But those who made those signs, thank you for reminding us who it is in America that creates jobs.”

In interviews with attendees here it became apparent that "those who made those signs," were campaign volunteers who passed them out to attendees who identified themselves as business owners when they arrived at the event.

If the signs weren't a reflection of true anger at the president, the voices of some business owners in the audience afterwards were.

"You put a dagger through every businessman's heart when you say what [President Obama] did," said Wayne Michaels, a retired orthodontist who proudly held one of the Romney campaign's signs. "That got my blood boiling."