Republicans' soul searching following the 2012 election could shortchange social conservatives, who say they're hardly to blame for the party's difficulties at the polls.

The snapshot analysis as for why Republican nominee Mitt Romney and a slew of downballot GOP candidates fell short on Nov. 6 has centered on changing demographics — an increasingly diverse electorate, but also softening views toward hot-button social issues.

Republicans have always likened their party to a three-legged stool, one leg representing economic conservatives, one representing national security conservatives, and one representing social conservatives — all acting in concert to support the party. And social conservatives are arguing that opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights, among other issues, are as intrinsic to the Republican Party’s identity as ever.

In their reading of the election, Mitt Romney’s strict focus on economic issues and a refusal to engage President Barack Obama on social issues helped fuel his loss to the Democratic incumbent.

“If you have a party that says not to talk about social issues, it’s going to be awfully hard to convince an electorate of why we should celebrate life,” said Bob Vander Plaats, the evangelical leader in Iowa who played an influential role in that state’s caucuses earlier this year.

To hear some conservative leaders tell their story, Romney erred in refusing to engage social issues forcefully enough. When the president endorsed same-sex marriage, Romney largely demurred; the GOP nominee largely left bread-and-butter social issues out of his stump speech, focusing almost exclusively on the economy — the top issue for voters.

"I think, clearly, the Republican Party didn’t win on the issue on which it invested a billion dollars," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony list, a women's anti-abortion group.

She argued, too, that it's difficult to blame the GOP's social conservatism for four losses among House Republicans who support abortion rights: Reps. Mary Bono Mack of California, Nan Hayworth of New York, Judy Biggert of Illinois, and Charlie Bass of New Hampshire. "My point is that everyone lost. Republican candidates didn’t lose because of their pro-life positions," she said.

But at the same time, Obama's campaign and Democrats pounded away at Romney's pledge to do away with federal support for Planned Parenthood. And Republicans gave their opponents additional fodder when they tried to counter an Obama administration regulation requiring religious employers to offer coverage for contraception with a more sweeping proposal allowing most employers to refuse covering any form of birth control. Compounding matters were the controversial comments made about rape by Republican senatorial candidates Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.

Whitney Curtis / Getty Images

Senate candidate, Rep. Todd Akin , son, Wynn Akin, and his wife, Lulli Akin wait in line to vote Nov. 6, 2012 in Wildwood, Mo.

"We have to get out of people's lives, get out of people's bedrooms, and we have to be a national party or else we are going to lose," outgoing Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, said on CNN following the election.

Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, speaking Nov. 7 on MSNBC, called Akin and Mourdock’s shortcomings “very disappointing,” saying,  “I think that everybody knows that some of the comments that were made were wrong, and it cost us at the polls."

Moreover, national exit polls found that voters in 2012 favored allowing for abortion to be legal, 59 percent to 36 percent. Obama won supporters of abortion rights by 36 points and Romney won opponents of abortion right by 56 points.

Americans also narrowly favored same-sex marriage, 49 percent to 46 percent. Obama won proponents of gay and lesbian marriages by 48 points, and Romney won opponents of it by 49 points. If nothing else, those figures would seem to mark a sea change from the 2004 election, when 13 states overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriage — a topic  which President George W. Bush used to motivate his supporters that cycle.

But to social conservatives, the challenge going forward is not a question of moderating; they argue that to rip out their leg from under the GOP would be to cripple the party politically. Rather, they argue the question is whether the party is able to find a more articulate messenger of social concerns.

Dannenfelser argued that Texas Sen.-elect Ted Cruz and Indiana Governor-elect Mike Pence (an outgoing congressman) are primed to lead social conservatives.

She and Vander Plaats, who could play an out-sized role in the still-very-distant 2016 Iowa caucuses, both also mentioned Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as a leading voice on those issues.

Steve Pope / Getty Images

Sen. Marco Rubio speaks on Nov. 17 in Altoona, Iowa.

To that end, in an interview with GQ magazine published Monday, Rubio argued that it was "unfair" to expect Republicans to stop voicing their opinions on social issues.

"There are a very significant number of Americans that feel very strongly about the issue of life, about the issue of marriage and are we saying that they should be silenced or not allowed to speak or voice their opinion?" he told the magazine. "There's a way to do that that is respectful and productive. There are things we'll always disagree on, but it doesn't mean we go to war over them or divide our country over them."

"I think Gov. Bobby Jindal is going to be a very compelling candidate in 2016, and he has some of that same conservative demeanor," Vander Plaats added of the Louisiana governor.

The Iowa conservative also said he thought that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whom Vander Plaats supported in 2008 but declined to run in 2012, might consider running again in 2016.

As the presidential election reaches its apex in intensity, so have arguments from the right that polls and economic statistics -- the numbers used to explain the 2012 campaign -- are not to be trusted.

The theory that many polls are under-sampling Republicans (and thus overstating the support for Obama) has become widespread on the right, as many supporters of Mitt Romney asserted this week during rallies before the first presidential debate.

“I’d prefer him to be higher in the polls, but I think a lot of conservatives just aren’t being polled,” said Cathy Barnes, a Romney voter from southeast Denver who attended the Republican nominee’s rally last Monday near Aurora.

“I don’t believe what they polls are saying, they’ve clearly been Democratic-skewed,” said Daniel Zustek, a health care worker from Denver, at the same rally. “If you look at the numbers – such as Ohio -- they’ve lost a lot of Democratic voter registration in the city of Cleveland, which isn’t stuff that’s really examined when they’re running these polls.”

“Push comes to shove, I think he’s ahead. I don’t think the Democratic turnout will be as high as it was four years ago,” Zustek added of Romney’s chances.

Recommended: On day of data, Romney turns personal

“I think the media likes to slant what the Romneys do. Just because the media says something doesn’t make it fact,” said Rosabel Herrington of Romney’s disadvantage among women voters in most polls before a “Women for Mitt” event Tuesday in Littleton.

The argument is based largely on the notion that pollsters are using a turnout model that most closely resembles the 2008 election, when turnout was inordinately high and Democrats outpaced Republicans. Conservatives argue that these samples should more closely match the 2004 election (when Republican turnout was inordinately high), or, if nothing else, include more Republicans.

Bolstering that argument have been surveys issued by pollster Scott Rasmussen, which have typically shown a tighter matchup between Romney and Obama both nationally and in many swing states. (One reason for this is because the automated polls used by Rasmussen and other outfits -- which NBC News don't report on --  are barred by law from contacting voters whose sole phone line is cellular. These voters are typically understood to skew younger and toward minorities, and thus, more Democratic.)

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens (R) echoed this sentiment when firing up a crowd at a Romney rally Monday in Denver.

"As you know, this race is close, and it's going to get closer. Sunday's Rasmussen poll showed that 43 percent of voters say they are certain to vote for Mitt Romney, and 42 percent are certain to vote for President Obama," he said. "But as you know, the undecideds typically swing towards the challenger. And in Colorado, poll after poll has showed that our state is virtually tied."

Obama led Romney, 50 to 45 percent, in the most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist poll of Colorado’s likely voters. And in the running tally of polls conducted by the website Real Clear Politics, which includes automated polls with varying party affiliations, Romney leads only in one: Rasmussen’s.

Recommended: Obama accuses Romney of shifting positions

And the Republican presidential nominee himself has invoked Rasmussen's polls to argue the race is much tighter than other polls had suggested.

"Actually the national polls, Rasmussen and Gallup have it a tied race," Romney told NBC's Ron Allen in an interview two weeks ago.

Since then, public opinion polls have shown the national tightening to a degree, and the impact of Romney's strong debate performance last Wednesday isn't fully reflected yet in polls.

The mounting criticism of polls mirrors what some Sen. John Kerry's supporters said about the Democrats' polling performance versus George W. Bush in 2004. But it also serves an unintended benefit for Romney in that Republicans might feel more engaged and active in backing the Republican ticket if they don't perceive it to be trailing Obama so badly.

A similar phenomenon emerged on Friday when conservatives expressed open skepticism of new monthly employment figures issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the economy added 114,000 new jobs in September, and that the unemployment rate had dropped from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent last month.

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric (the former parent company of NBC News), set off a firestorm by insinuating that the administration manipulated the jobs numbers because they were so incredible.

“I have no evidence to prove that. I just raised the question,” Welch explained later in the day on MSNBC.

Welch also declined to retract his assertion: “I don’t want to take back one word in that tweet. … It just defies the imagination to have a surge larger than any other surge since 1983 a month before the election.”

Other political figures weighed in to support Welch’s assertion. Rush Limbaugh expressed skepticism toward the numbers on his show, and one member of Congress encouraged doubt of the official job statistics, too.

"I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here. Somehow by manipulation of data we are all of a sudden below 8 percent unemployment, a month from the Presidential election," Florida Rep. Allen West (R) wrote on his Facebook page. "Trust the Obama administration? Sure, and the spontaneous reaction to a video caused the death of our Ambassador ... and pigs fly."

But that notion was startling to several other conservatives. Tony Fratto, a former spokesman in President George W. Bush's White House, called the allegation of labor data manipulation "dumb conspiracy theories" on his Twitter page.

And Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist who formerly served as director of the Congressional Budget Office, strongly disputed the idea that Obama would manipulate September's report.

"These numbers put together by the BLS or BEA, they're all done by career civil servants who are experts in the area with complete integrity," he said. "If someone tried to do that -- if I, during my time in the Bush administration, had gone to the BLS and said, 'Juice these numbers,' they would have called the Washington Post so fast. That's just not acceptable; it's not how the process works."

Besides, Holtz-Eakin argued, Republicans have plenty to criticize in this jobs report. He argued that the drop in the jobless rate could be an aberration based on an unusually high number of households to report employment in this month's survey.

"We still have a labor force participation rate that's down at 1981 levels, and we still have an unemployment rate that's not a cause for celebration either," he said.

Mitt Romney has stumbled recently in his quest to unseat President Barack Obama, but GOP stalwarts argue that his presidential campaign isn’t a lost cause and say their nominee still has time to turn things around.

A series of stories – about Obama’s convention bump, Romney’s haphazard response to a diplomatic crisis in Libya, and a POLITICO story about infighting in the Republican’s campaign – fueled a growing consensus that Romney is solidly trailing Obama right now, a feeling supported by polling data both nationally and in key battleground states.

That perception was further hardened by the release of videos of Romney speaking to a closed-door fundraiser in May, in which the GOP candidate describes 47 percent of Americans as “dependent on government,” and whom he’ll never convince to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” The videos were surreptitiously taped and published on the website of the left-leaning magazine Mother Jones and dominated the political conversation Tuesday.

Tuesday’s new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, showing Obama at 50 percent versus Romney’s 45 percent among likely voters, only added evidence to this emerging conventional wisdom.

“I’d give the edge to the president today,” said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a seasoned Republican political hand of the state of the race. “But I don’t think that means much; Carter had the edge at this point in 1980 and Gore had the edge at this point in 2000.”

With just 49 days remaining until the election, there isn’t a lot of time for Romney to reverse the trajectory of the campaign. Television airwaves have been saturated by political ads for months now, and polls suggest that many voters are already “locked in” – that is, firmly dedicated to a candidate – leaving few true swing voters leftover.

"This is a very close campaign. I think all the polls taken together reflect that," Romney adviser Kevin Madden told reporters traveling with Romney on Tuesday. "I think it will be all the way until Election Day."

Madden added that the campaign would be "very well-positioned to win on Election Day if we focus on the issues that matter to the American public."

But the campaign has focused on anything but its stated central focus on the economy during the last few weeks, and Republicans argue that if Romney is to win, something must change in his approach.

“Romney has run a terrible race to this point, but, with that said, he can still win,” said one Republican pollster who asked to speak on background so as to offer more candid analysis. “There's no data point out there that says this is an unwinnable race.”

Jim Young / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney laughs as he prepares to board his campaign plane in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 19.

Conservative media have become openly critical of the Romney campaign strategy, too. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan urged party elders to step in and “right this ship;” the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack wrote that the only conclusion to draw from Romney’s missteps was that he is “not a conservative,” and that when he tries to sell himself as one, “he sometimes comes across as a right-wing caricature.”

The Romney campaign tried early Monday to respond to criticism of its strategy by pledging a renewed focus on adding details and specifics to the nominee’s existing proposals. But Republicans seem to be clamoring for something different. Former New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jack Kimball typified the sentiment when, speaking Tuesday at a town hall in the Granite State featuring Paul Ryan, he won an ovation by telling Ryan, “It’s time to take the gloves off.”

The Republican base’s demands of Romney are two-fold: First, be more aggressive in taking the fight to Obama; second, offer a more affirmative agenda on a variety of issues.

“He's got to get away from this class warfare argument and make it more about middle class families and small business,” said the pollster. “He's very defensive when he needs to get on offense.”

The open advice reflects the sense that Romney cannot only rely on a poor economy and anti-incumbent anger directed toward Obama. But these are also difficult demands for Romney to meet. As was the case with his accusation that Obama had sympathized with Libyans who attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi (leaving four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens), aggression for its own sake can backfire.

And Romney’s campaign has still offered no indication that it would become any more specific on some central issues, such as the deductions which President Romney would eliminate in order to finance his tax reform plan.

To even accomplish those goals, though, Romney must move past the series of controversies and uproars to dog his campaign for days at a time.

Republicans aren’t particularly sweating the duration of the controversy stemming from the release of these videos. “There will be something more decisive between now and November,” said Cole.

But with the election quickly drawing toward a close, the pressure is mounting on Romney to finally make his move  –  beginning, most importantly, at the Oct. 3 presidential debate in Colorado.

“I think those are the decisive moments in the campaign,” Cole said of the three presidential debates spread throughout October. “That’s where Romney has to make the sale, and has a chance to correct all the mistakes of the campaign to this point.”

With his campaign strategy under increasing scrutiny, Mitt Romney will pivot toward offering more specifics about his policy proposals, a top adviser to the GOP presidential nominee said Monday.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns in the rain at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012.

Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie argued Monday that voters are “eager to hear more details” about Romney’s plans, a demand which they will attempt to meet. But this shift toward greater explanation glaringly coincides with escalating, open worries from conservatives that President Barack Obama has opened up an advantage over Romney with just seven weeks to go before Election Day.

“We do think the timing is right at this moment to reinforce the specifics – more specifics – about the Romney plan for a stronger middle class,” Gillespie said on a conference call with reporters.

The Romney campaign has faced mounting criticism of its strategy – which has focused almost solely on emphasizing the incumbent president’s economic management – after Obama emerged from the summer’s dueling political conventions with an edge both nationally and in several key swing states. Discord within the Republican’s camp was detailed in a Sunday evening report in POLITICO, an airing of dirty laundry not typically associated with the efforts of a winning campaign.

The POLTICO story described a campaign beset by dueling chains of authority, which most notably led to Romney and a top strategist, Stuart Stevens, scrapping initial drafts of his prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention and rewriting the address together in the days before its delivery.

Gillespie asserted that the Romney campaign’s pivot was “more of a natural progression” in the arc of a campaign rather than having been prompted by any specific factor.

But handwringing about Romney, especially among conservatives, many of whom have never fully embraced Romney, is nearing a fever pitch. RedState editor Erick Erickson wrote Monday that Romney “has failed to close any deal with the voters and his message is so muddled no voter really knows what they are getting.”  The posting by Erickson also predicted that Obama would win the election if it were held today.

The Romney campaign has put its best face on the criticism,  not acknowledging or giving any credence to the accusations that things have taken a turn and an adjustment is required to change course.

“It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and have complaints,” Bay Buchanan, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said this morning on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown.”

“We have a very good position today … we have the right message and very strong ads, and the polls show movement,” Buchanan said.

But a campaign built around offering more specifics would mark a departure from how the Romney campaign has organized itself for the better part of the last year and a half.

Romney has often doggedly refused to say, for instance, which specific tax deductions he would eliminate in order to finance the tax cuts he has promised. He has been critical of Obama’s management of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has not been especially willing to say how he would have handled them differently.

The Republican instead appeared to bet for most of this year that anger toward Obama related to a lackluster economic recovery would be enough to subsume the president come November. In that spirit, Romney has largely run a cautious campaign that avoided giving specifics that might otherwise be turned against him, a strategy he first telegraphed to the conservative Weekly Standard in April.

"One of the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, that was used to suggest I don’t care about education," Romney told the magazine. "So will there be some [departments and agencies] that get eliminated or combined? The answer is yes, but I’m not going to give you a list right now."

Shortly after that piece was published, Romney was overheard by NBC News telling donors at a closed-door fundraiser that he would consider eliminating the Department of Housing and Urban Development and shrink the Department of Education. As Romney predicted, the Obama campaign pounced.

This new push by the Romney campaign won’t center upon offering new policies and proposals, though. Rather, it will focus on adding detail to Romney’s pre-existing plans.

“We're not rolling out new policy so much as we are making sure that people understand that, when we say we're going to do these things, here's how we're going to get them done, and here are the specifics,” Gillespie said.

As part of its renewed effort, though, Gillespie said Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan would offer more detail in a series of upcoming speeches and events. Ryan will speak, for instance, before the AARP – a group where the Wisconsin congressman’s push to reform Medicare might meet a cool reception.

The Romney campaign also released new ads on Monday morning – including one, “The Romney Plan” –  which also looks to better describe the former Massachusetts governor’s proposals.

Despite any change in approach, Gillespie argued that Romney is still well-positioned to beat Obama this fall. He called the Republican National Convention in Tampa “successful,” and argued that any “bounce” the president had received from his own convention had already dissipated.

Romney also has an additional opportunity available to him in October’s three debates versus Obama to re-orient his campaign. Though Gillespie didn’t make mention of the debates – the first of which is set for Oct. 3 in the swing state of Colorado –  Romney spent much of last week and this weekend preparing for those crucial showdowns.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- After nearly four years in office, President Barack Obama asked America on Thursday night to give him a second term, in a speech reaching back to the touchstone of "hope and change" that propelled him to the White House in 2008, while also acknowledging the unfinished work in achieving that promise.

In his formal acceptance speech, the president embraced the contrast that his party had tried to draw between himself and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney throughout this week’s Democratic National Convention. Obama said the GOP only offered voters the “same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years,” and laid out policies that he said would move America in the direction of Obama’s campaign theme: “Forward.”

"I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed ... I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the president," Obama told the crowd at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena, where his speech was moved after weather concerns disrupted plans for an outdoor event.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

“But as I stand here tonight, I have never been more hopeful about America,” the president added, in a line emblematic of his efforts to once again stir enthusiasm in his candidacy.

The speech capped a convention designed to reignite enthusiasm with Obama’s winning voting coalition from 2008, including dozens of speeches paying testament to the president’s character and condemning Romney in the same breath.

Chris Keane / Reuters

President Barack Obama addresses the final session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina September 6, 2012.

On foreign policy, for instance, Obama ridiculed Romney as inexperienced and naïve.

“After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy – and not al Qaida – unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War time warp,” he said. “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.”

Related: Four challenges for Obama

The Democratic convention this week was constructed in part to rebut last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., during which Romney seized on disappointment in Obama after four years, and argued “the time has come to turn the page.”

Convention speeches have served as major milestones for Obama in his path to the White House. His 2004 keynote speech as a Senate candidate rocketed him to national stardom, and Obama’s 2008 speech as the Democratic presidential nominee helped propel him to victory.

On Thursday evening, Obama nodded toward the disillusionment of the high-soaring rhetoric of his last campaign, but said that he was still moved by the “hope” that animated his 2008 bid, and asked for more time to achieve his goals.

“You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth,” he said. “And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.”

Republicans, including Romney, have made issue of that tarnished sense of hope. The GOP nominee, who said he didn’t plan to watch Obama’s speech, nonetheless expected it to dwell on “forgotten promises.” Romney’s campaign manager said Obama’s speech had only made “the case for more of the same policies that haven't worked for the past four years.”

But tonight’s acceptance speech was characteristic of a convention that devoted much of its energy to building up Obama and knocking down Romney.

Vice President Joe Biden's speech earlier in the evening was, in many ways, a warm-up act for the president, with Biden serving as the "character witness" for Obama.

The vice president hailed Obama's "gutsy" decisions, from rescuing the auto industry to ordering the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. And he made the case that the both of them had more work to do in a second term.

"We know we have more work to do. We know we’re not there yet. But not a day has gone by in the last four years when I haven’t been grateful that Barack Obama is our president," said Biden, “because he always has the courage to make the tough decisions.”

Biden also assumed the more traditional role for a vice president by going aggressively after Romney and his ticket-mate Paul Ryan -- keeping with the constant stream of scrutiny leveled toward the Republican duo at this week's convention.

"Folks, the 'Bain Way' may bring your firm the highest profits," said Biden, referring to the private equity firm Romney had co-founded, experience from which the GOP nominee cites as a chief credential. "But it’s not the way to lead our country from the highest office."

The notion of conviction was also a theme in Sen. John Kerry’s foreign policy-oriented speech earlier in the evening.

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said Romney “hasn’t learned the lessons of the past decade,” referring to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan initiated by President George W. Bush. Kerry also accused Romney of reversing himself and being inconsistent in criticizing Obama’s handling of Afghanistan and Libya.

“Talk about being for it before you were against it,” exclaimed Kerry, riffing on the infamous line from his 2004 campaign that fueled charges that Kerry – like Romney now – was a “flip-flopper.”

Obama’s speech – along with Romney’s last week – marked a turning point in the 2012 campaign, which now heads into its most intense leg leading up through Election Day. Convention speeches are regarded as some of the few opportunities for candidates to affect the trajectory of the race, though it will take days, if not more, to know whether the dueling powwows in Tampa and Charlotte will have moved the needle at all.

Both campaigns will hit the road on Friday to begin making their cases until a series of debates in October – the next major turning point in the campaign – one that could help determine the outcome of the election.

On Friday, Obama and Biden will campaign together in both Iowa and New Hampshire, two key swing states that their ticket won in 2008.

Romney, meanwhile, will campaign in New Hampshire while vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan campaigns in Nevada.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.

Launch slideshow

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – President Barack Obama will ask voters for another four years in office tonight, arguing that he needs more time in order to fully address some of the nation’s deepest-rooted problems.

 “I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear,” Obama will say tonight at the Democratic National Convention, according to excerpts released by his campaign.

“You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades,” he will add.

Related: Obama faces another defining convention speech

The president’s pitch seems, in part, to acknowledge voters’ disappointment that the “change” Obama had promised to bring about during his 2008 campaign had come slowly, something the president himself often notes on the campaign trail.

But as Republicans continue to argue this week that voters today are no better off than when Obama took office, Obama will lay out elements of a second-term agenda he would seek if re-elected.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Among Obama’s promises would be a $4 trillion reduction in the deficit over the next decade, and creating 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of his second term. Obama will also call for halving net oil imports by 2020 and cutting the growth rate of college tuition in half over the next 10 years, too.

It’s not clear whether Obama will offer much detail as to how he might accomplish these proposals, especially since tonight’s speech is essentially a political one. The preview offered by his campaign says, though, that savings associated with ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be re-invested in the economy.

“But know this, America: Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future,” Obama will say. “That’s what we can do in the next four years, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as president of the United States.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Democrats formally nominated President Barack Obama for a second term following a rousing speech from former President Bill Clinton casting Obama as a centrist dealmaker and a candidate who did his best to avert a recession.

Clinton, one of the most popular figures in American politics today, delivered a speech portraying his fellow Democrat as a well-intentioned moderate who was spurned by Republicans throughout the past four years – following the trail first blazed by Clinton in the 1990s.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Almost seemingly responding to Republicans’ use of a well-worn argument in recent days, asking whether Americans are better off today than they were four years ago, when Obama was elected, Clinton said the answer was a definitive “yes.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Former President Bill Clinton speaks on stage during day two of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 5, 2012 in Charlotte, N.C.

“Are we where we want to be today? No. Is the president satisfied? Of course not,” Clinton said. “But are we better off than we were when he took office?” The crowd replied with shouts of yes. 

Of the precarious economic situation Obama faced upon assuming office, Clinton added that “no one could have repaired all the damage he found in just four years.”

The speech by Clinton, a former adversary of Obama’s when his wife, Hillary Clinton was competing against Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination, drew one of the most energetic responses of the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

At the outset of his speech, Clinton also formally entered Obama’s name up for the Democratic presidential nomination, something that the convention officially ratified in a state-by-state roll call vote early Thursday morning.

Obama himself joined Clinton onstage shortly after the conclusion of his speech, which had to battle a marquee, prime-time opening-night NFL matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants across the television dial.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has repeatedly referenced the former Democratic president on the campaign trail, in order to argue that Obama has governed well to the left of Clinton, whose centrism was a core element of his political identity.

Clinton indirectly rebuffed that by painting the president as an actor who genuinely sought compromise.

“One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation,” said Clinton.

And Clinton on Wednesday evening rejected Romney’s proposals as inconsistent and fiscally unsound.

Of Romney’s balanced budget proposals, Clinton said: “The Romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility; the numbers don’t add up.”

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Former President Bill Clinton hugs President Barack Obama on stage during day two of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 5, 2012 in Charlotte, N.C.

The former president’s speech was the highlight of second day of the Democratic National Convention that seemed to largely chug along at a lower energy level than Tuesday’s opening festivities, when speakers led the audience in call-and-response cheers, and speeches by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and first lady Michelle Obama won multiple ovations.

For the second night in a row, Democrats featured final speakers who took a less personal tone toward the Republican Party, a contrast to earlier speeches featuring unrelenting and aggressive attacks on the GOP. Democrats have broadcast their intention to showcase a sharp "contrast" betwen Obama and Romney during the convention, a consistent theme in Tuesday's speeches that continued into most of Wednesday.

Democrats’ Wednesday night schedule featured some re-shuffling, most notably pushing contraceptive rights activist Sandra Fluke’s speech – unabashed in its criticism of Romney and the GOP – into the prime-time slot nationally broadcast by most networks.

She said that in a Romney administration, “Your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs ... It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms.”

Fluke spoke shortly before another Democratic favorite, Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, took the stage to deliver a strong defense of Obama.

Related:Warren attacks 'rigged' political, economic system

Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts and a favorite of liberal activists, played on a broad sense of middle class anxiety in her speech, portraying Obama as the only antidote to voters’ hardships.

She delivered a plainly populist speech, suggesting to Americans that the deck is stacked against them – a stark contrast to the Republican message that opportunity expands as business is freed from regulation.

“People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged,” she said, adding: “We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged.”

She also seized on Romney’s line more than a year ago at the Iowa State Fair, in which the then-candidate said, “Corporations are people, my friend,” in response to a heckler.

“No, Gov. Romney, corporations are not people,” Warren said to rising applause from the audience. “People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters – that matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people. And that's why we need Barack Obama.”

Other speakers on Wednesday took more direct strides toward leveling specific attacks and courting specific groups of voters.

The Congressional Black Caucus chairman, Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, was one of the most memorable early speakers on Wednesday. An ordained United Methodist minister, Cleaver brought the crowd to its feet with a refrain of "Move on!" at one point marching in place to exhort fellow Democrats to work this fall for Obama.

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, was meanwhile charged with taking on Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential nominee, budget panel chairman and personal friend of Van Hollen’s.

Related: Ryan tries to draw wedge between Clinton, Obama 

“If Paul Ryan was being honest, he would have pointed to that debt clock and said: 'We built that,'" said Van Hollen, referring to the clock at last week’s Republican National Convention tabulating mounting U.S. debt during the gathering in Tampa. The Maryland Democrat blamed GOP-led tax cuts and the wars overseas for exploding the size of the national debt which Obama inherited.

Van Hollen, who is playing Ryan in debate preparations with Vice President Joe Biden, added: “Congressman Ryan, America is literally in your debt.”

And AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – one of several leaders in organized labor featured this evening – tried to portray Romney as out-of-touch, saying, “Mitt Romney doesn’t know a thing about hard work or responsibility.”

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Stan Honda / AFP - Getty Images

Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.

Launch slideshow

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – First lady Michelle Obama said her husband remains anchored by the same values he brought to the White House nearly four years ago, on a night devoted as much to tearing down Republican nominee Mitt Romney, as building up President Barack Obama and his record.

Democrats’ message on Tuesday, the first day of the Democratic National Convention, was two-pronged and crystal clear. The evening’s speeches both sought to extol the president’s accomplishments and cast him as empathetic, while at the same time looking to deconstruct Romney and cast him as an impossibly worse choice for president.

Slideshow: The Democratic National Convention

The evening’s top-billed speakers embodied the dual purposes of Tuesday’s programming.  Michelle Obama said her husband was the “same man” he was before the White House, in a speech designed to put a softer edge on the  president’s case for re-election. And keynote speaker Julian Castro said Romney would diminish opportunities for voters if elected, in a speech that also weaved in the personal story of the San Antonio mayor, whom party leaders regard as a rising star.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

First lady Michelle Obama speaks on stage during day one of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 4, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

VIDEO: Tuesday night's DNC speeches

"I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are – no, it reveals who you are," Michelle Obama said in her prime-time speech. "So in the end, for Barack, these issues aren’t political – they’re personal. Because Barack knows what it means when a family struggles ... Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it."

And the first lady brought the crowd to their feet in closing: "I know from experience that if I truly want to leave a better world for my daughters, and all our sons and daughters ... then we must work like never before, and we must once again come together and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward…my husband, our president, President Barack Obama."

Mrs. Obama's speech capped hours’ worth of speeches in Charlotte, but stood in contrast against most of the day’s earlier speakers, many of whom offered sharp criticism of Romney. So strong were the attacks on the Republican nominee, that it seemed as though many of the efforts to build up Obama were secondary to disparaging Romney.

PhotoBlog: See a 360-degree view of Michelle Obama speaking at the DNC

A spokeswoman for the GOP presidential nominee, Andrea Saul, said late Tueseday evening in response: "On the first night of President Obama’s convention, not a single speaker uttered the words ‘Americans are better off than they were four years ago.’ Instead, there was a night full of tributes to government as the solution to every problem, even going as far as to say that ‘government is the only thing that we all belong to."

Though much of his speech focused on overcoming the difficulties associated with being a poor Latino in Texas as a child, the middle of Castro’s speech took aim at Romney in a way that was similar to those addresses.

"Republicans tell us that if the most prosperous among us do even better, that somehow the rest of us will too. Folks, we’ve heard that before. First they called it 'trickle-down.' Then they called it 'supply-side.' Now it’s 'Romney-Ryan.' Or is it 'Ryan-Romney'?" Castro said. "Either way, their theory's been tested. It failed. Our economy failed. The middle class paid the price. Your family paid the price. Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it.”

As if to clarify the evening's theme, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said: "We understand that progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we move forward or back, this too is a choice. And that is what this election is all about."

Other attacks on Romney sought to exploit Obama’s current advantages over his Republican opponents among women and Latinos, two crucial voting blocs which could sway the outcome of the election.

Texas Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Romney had “embraced the racial profiling policies of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Sheriff Joe Arpaio” by way of praising Arizona’s controversial immigration law as a “model.”

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has clashed publicly with the Bain Capital co-founder by contending that there were years in which Romney paid no taxes, excoriated the GOP nominee as opaque and undeserving of trust.

(Reid's charge prompted a response from Romney spokesman Ryan Williams: "Harry Reid has once again shown that he is completely detached from reality. Senator Reid’s comments tonight are absolutely false and are another attempt to distract from President Obama’s abysmal economic record.")

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

David Goldman / AP

Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.

Launch slideshow

The tone of the first night of the Democratic convention seemed more aggressively negative toward Romney than much of the Republican-led criticism of Obama last week in Tampa. It was an emphasis in keeping with Democrats’ effort to turn the election into a choice – in which they try to make Romney seem like a worse pick than Romney – rather than a referendum on Obama’s record after almost four years in office.

The first day of the Democratic convention was also an exercise in energizing the party’s core constituencies. Among the speakers on Tuesday were the leaders of the AFL-CIO and SEIU, two of the nation’s largest labor groups, the president of the pro-abortion rights group NARAL, and speakers like openly gay Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, who praised Obama’s actions to expand gay rights.

Those strides toward building up Obama were certainly part of the programming on Tuesday night, and the achievements most frequently emphasized included the president’s signature health care overhaul law and the bailout of the auto industry in particular.

“Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor,” said O’Malley, the first prime-time speaker of the evening. “But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.”

On Wednesday, Democrats will formally name Obama their candidate re-election after a highly-anticipated nominating speech by former President Bill Clinton.

Obama himself will travel to Charlotte on Wednesday, joining Vice President Joe Biden who made it to the convention city this afternoon. Both men will speak outdoors on Thursday at Charlotte’s Bank of America stadium, the home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and a potentially raucous atmosphere the president’s campaign hopes will recapture the imagery of Obama’s 2008 outdoor acceptance speech in Denver.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The two highest-profile speakers Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention sought to paint Mitt Romney as sensitive and relatable, but also resolute and decisive in a way that President Barack Obama is not.

Ann Romney, the wife of the Republican nominee-in-waiting, made an unmasked pitch to women voters, a bloc her husband has struggled with in the polls.

Watch Tuesday night's speeches here

And Chris Christie, the brash governor of New Jersey, used his keynote event to lionize Romney as a problem solver who would prioritize "respect over love" from voters.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Ann Romney, wife of U.S. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012.

These speeches, broadcast to a national audience, were among the best-received remarks in an evening that sometimes suffered from a lack of energy among delegates who have gathered in downtown Tampa.

"No one will work harder, no one will care more, and no one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country a better place to live," Mrs. Romney said in one of the evening's biggest applause lines.

Slideshow: The 2012 Republican National Convention

Many of Tuesday's various speeches showcased the party's diversity, particularly among women and Latinos.

The speakers emphasized hardscrabble roots and the importance of small businesses in keeping with the evening's theme, "We Built It" -- a play on President Barack Obama's comments in July about government's role in supporting business.

"We ended an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principle in New Jersey; it’s time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real leaders to the White House," Christie said, adding a degree of immediacy before the crowd of delegates.

"America needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we need them right now," he added.

The New Jersey governor is regarded as one of the Republican Party's most direct voices, which has made him a star in the GOP -- so much so that some Republicans had recruited him (unsucessfully) to run for president this campaign cycle.

The Republican convention was shortened after inclement weather forced organizers to cancel Monday's programming. In this time span, the GOP is tasked with making their case against Obama and humanizing Mitt Romney, whose personal opinion rating was in net-negative territory entering the convention.

Part of that included an attack on Obama's own words from a Roanoke, Va., campaign event: "If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen," followed by criticism of that "you didn't get there on your own" contention.

"Now if a guy walked into our bar, heard all that, and said, 'If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,'" said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, referring to his own family's bar. "You know what we’d do. Throw him out."

The evening was often an excercise, too, in projecting the party's diversity. For a stretch during the evening, no white men were featured as speakers.

Watch Tuesday night's speeches here

Ann Romney's speech was tailored in large part to speak directly toward women, whether single or working.

"It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right," she said.

Obama led Romney 51 percent to 41 percent among women in the August NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and the GOP brand lags significantly behind the Democratic brand among women voters. Forty-five percent of women in the August poll had a favorable impression of the Democratic Party, while 36 percent had an unfavorable view; women voters had a 36 percent positive view of the GOP, and a 47 percent negative view.

Scott Olson / Getty Images file photo

Sen. Kelly Ayotte stands on stage during a soundcheck with stage manager Howard Kolins during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.

Ann Romney also described her relationship with Mitt as far from a "storybook marriage," recounting difficulties ranging from raising five sons to battling multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.

"I know this good and decent man for what he is -- warm and loving and patient," she said.

But if Mrs. Romney's speech was directed toward softening Romney's public persona, Christie's was intended to project Romney's strength (and boast a little bit of his own).

Indeed, one of the most warmly welcomed Republicans to speak Tuesday evening was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who pushed a controversial bill curbing collective bargaining rights through his state legislature, and survived a resulting recall effort.

"Now, more than ever, we need reformers: leaders who think more about the next generation than just the next election," Walker said. "That’s what you get from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."

TAMPA, Fla. –  After a one-day delay, the Republican National Convention has kicked off, and the party’s overtures to women and Latinos – two groups with whom the GOP has lagged in this election cycle – will make up the centerpiece of Tuesday’s programming.

Some Republican Latinos regarded as rising stars in the party will be thrust into the national spotlight over the next few days, part of a comprehensive effort by the GOP to court Hispanic voters, an increasingly important voting bloc in several swing states.

Among the Latino speakers appearing at Tuesday's Republican National Convention session are Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-Texas, Sher Valenzuela, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Delaware, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, and Texas GOP Senate nominee Ted Cruz.

And Luce Vela Fortuno, the first lady of Puerto Rico, will introduce Ann Romney before her highly anticipated address.

All conventions are choreographed to send a very specific message to voters, and are intended to win additional support that the presidential candidate or party might not have been able to count on.

NBC Latino: Republican Latinos unite behind Romney and focus on the economy

But the stakes are particularly high for the GOP this cycle given Mitt Romney’s deficit with Latino voters, along with a similar disadvantage with women – groups whom the Obama campaign has assiduously courted as it charts a path toward re-election.

“The party has shot itself many times in the foot with the community; it hasn’t done all it could,” said Al Cardenas, the American Conservative Union chairman who’s long pushed for greater efforts to court Latinos. “The good news for Romney is that the party kind of hit bottom, so the arrow has nowhere to point but north.”

Johnny Hanson / AP

Ted Cruz, left, and his general consultant Jason Johnson look at early returns in his war room at the JW Marriott in the Galleria during his runoff election on July 31, 2012, in Houston.

Republicans feel they’re putting forward more powerful voices than ever, though, in their bid to win over Hispanics. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s speech introducing Romney on Thursday is one of the convention’s most highly anticipated, as are the speeches by Cruz and Sandoval.

“I think the GOP putting our five highest-level elected Latinos as speakers at the convention is really a very good thing,” said Ana Navarro, a Florida-based Republican strategist.

Read: Villaraigosa: Republicans 'can't just trot out a brown face'

President George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Latino vote in his 2004 re-election bid, and Arizona Sen. John McCain won 31 percent of the Latino vote in 2008. Both were proponents of comprehensive immigration reform.

In the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll, Romney won the support of just 23 percent of registered Latino voters – an ominous sign, especially since Hispanic voters are wielding growing influence in several swing states.

“If the polls are accurate, and Romney is under 30 percent – in the high 20s with Latinos – it really is very concerning,” said Navarro.

“If the needle doesn't move, put a fork in Romney because he's done.”

Democrats have been dismissive of Republican efforts to court Latinos as mere lip service for Hispanic voters and their concerns.

"You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate," said Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a press conference Tuesday morning.

But arguably just as pressing for Republicans this week is their need to eat into Obama's and Democrats’ advantage among women.

Obama led Romney 51 percent to 41 percent among women in the August NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and the GOP brand lags significantly behind the Democratic brand among women voters. Forty-five percent of women in the August poll had a favorable impression of the Democratic Party, while 36 percent had an unfavorable view; women voters had a 36 percent positive view of the GOP, and a 47 percent negative view.

Related: “We need the Hispanic vote and we want to win it,” says Craig Romney

Republicans are hopeful that Tuesday evening’s speeches by Ann Romney and Washington Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers will help soften women’s views of the party, especially on the heels of Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin’s recent comments about rape.

Other prominent GOP women taking the stage tonight are Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., Gov. Mary Fallin, R-Okla., and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (a rumored member of Mitt Romney's vice presidential short list).

“We’re not in territory where we can’t win … you can lose women by 7 to 8 points and win the election,” said Sara Taylor Fagen, a former communications director in the Bush administration. “We’re in territory with Hispanics where, if over the long term we don’t improve, we can’t win.”

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, answers questions from the media on board their campaign plane on Aug. 28, 2012 en route to Tampa, Florida, for the Republican National Convention.

The Obama campaign has seized on instances where Republicans seemed to target access to contraception this past year in order to strengthen its advantage among women; it's backed up that message with millions in television advertising.

California Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a Republican who supports abortion rights, said earlier today on MSNBC that she wished the GOP would use “softer” language in its platform when it comes to reproductive rights.

“I think that we would be better served if we loosened that up a bit,” she said.

But Republicans might be better served to stay the course with their emphasis on the economy and health care rather than contraceptive issues.

“Women in this campaign who are going to vote on the basis of social issues have already probably decided for Barack Obama,” she said. 

Updated, 1:30 p.m. - TAMPA, Fla. -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that Republicans "can't just trot out a brown face" to make inroads with the Latino community, an increasingly important growing bloc.

As the GOP prepares to showcase some of its rising Hispanic stars during the next two days of its national convention, the Democratic mayor dismissed Republican overtures toward Latinos as insincere.

"You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate," Villaraigosa said at a press conference here organized by the Democratic National Committee.

"People are going to vote just like Anglos do, just like African-Americans do, and virtually every demographic group. They vote for people based on what they say, what they've done, and what they're going to do," he later added.

Among the Latinos speaking in Tuesday's Republican National Convention programming are Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-Texas. Sher Valenzuela, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Delaware, Republican Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Texas GOP Senate nominee Ted Cruz.

But, other staunch opponents of illegal immigration -- like Iowa Rep. Steve King, who's speaking as well on Tuesday -- will also be among the featured voices in the day's program.

"I don't think it's going to do much for him, frankly," Villaraigosa said of the GOP's overall message.

The Los Angeles mayor predicted that President Barack Obama would win "close to 70 percent" of the Latino vote in his re-election effort; Romney advisers have set a goal in the upper-30th percentile in targeting Hispanic voters.

Latino voters are of particular importance in swing states like Colorado, Florida and Virginia -- a sign of shifting demographics that Republicans have worried would put them at a long-term political disadvantage unless they were to become more welcoming of Latinos.

Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Romney, said in response to today's Democratic bracketing event: "Today, as we learn that more than a quarter of Democrats believe President Obama does not have a clear plan for creating jobs, his surrogates in Tampa continued to launch false and baseless attacks against Governor Romney.  The facts speak for themselves – with 23 million Americans struggling for work, nearly one in six Americans living in poverty, and median incomes declining, the Obama campaign cannot defend a record of broken promises and failed policies.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have a plan to strengthen the middle class by creating jobs and turning around our economy."