MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – In a sign that the Republican ticket is trying to expand the electoral map before Tuesday’s election, Paul Ryan held his first public campaign rally since being selected as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick in the traditionally blue state of Minnesota with just two days to go before Election Day.

“Minnesota, you gonna help us win this election?” Ryan asked a nearly 6,500-person crowd in the Twin Cities.

Until recently, neither Ryan nor his running mate paid much attention to the North Star state, which President Barack Obama won in 2008 and which awards 10 electoral votes.

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Ryan and his wife, Janna, ate dinner in downtown St. Paul last week, and he held a fundraiser in Minneapolis on Oct. 13. But Sunday’s rally marks the first public event for either Ryan or Romney during the general election.

Speaking at an airport hangar at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport with about 48 hours before Election Day, Ryan asked Minnesotans to unite behind Romney-Ryan.

“We could use your help, Minnesota. How about it? What do you say?” he said to cheers. “Look at this: Vikings for Romney-Ryan. Even Vikings fans and Packers fans can lie down together for this country.”

He even joked about how he is constantly confused for being from Minnesota.

Ryan said: “You know, as I travel around the country and this has been my story for years, in D.C., people say ‘Oh yeah, Ryan, you're that budget guy from Minnesota, right?’ I say, ‘No I’m from Wisconsin, close. We’re the Catholic deer hunters; they are the Lutheran deer hunters.”

It was Ryan’s largest solo campaign crowd to date and he fed off the energy in the state that borders his home state of Wisconsin.

“You know this is a critical election. You know it's a critical moment. We can't handle four more years of this, and Minnesota, work with us. Join with us. Together we can do this. Two more days and we get America back on the right track you guys. Two more days!” Ryan said.

Sunday’s stop in the Twin Cities area is one of four events for Ryan as he also held events in Wisconsin and Ohio earlier in the day and will head to Colorado for a final rally tonight.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NBC's Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report.

 

 

A former staffer for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign filed suit Monday against Bachmann and her senior campaign staff, alleging emotional distress and a damaged reputation during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.

The staffer, Barb Heki, who was the campaign’s Homeschool Coalitions Director, says she was unjustly blamed during a flap last fall over the use of a list of thousands of homeschool families for campaign e-mails. Heki, based in Johnston, Iowa, says she and her husband lost their seats on the board of the Iowa homeschool network "NICHE" shortly afterward.

“The Plaintiffs have been isolated and expelled from their professional, social, political, and spiritual lives and careers, in Iowa and nationally,” said the petition, filed in Polk County District Court in Des Moines.

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Read the lawsuit here (.pdf)

Heki alleges that Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson, then the campaign’s Iowa chairman, took the list from her computer. 

Also named in the petition are campaign manager Keith Nahigian and other senior staff, who Heki says were aware of what Sorenson had done but nevertheless allowed her reputation to suffer.

Reached by phone late Sunday, Sorenson denied taking the homeschool list.

“No, I did not,” Sorenson said, adding that he dealt extensively with NICHE in the aftermath to rectify things.

The Bachmann campaign paid NICHE, a 501c3 nonprofit, several thousand dollars in order to keep the group compliant with federal elections law prohibiting political activity.

Nahigian also released a statement on Dec. 1, noting the campaign “regrets any inconvenience this mistake may have caused.”

Nahigian was not available for comment Monday.

In an telephone interview, Heki said her “whole life and reputation was destroyed” by the events. But, she said, she still supports Michele Bachmann’s conservative platform, and she won’t vote for Mitt Romney for president in November.

Bachmann is currently facing a tough reelection fight in Minnesota’s 6^th district.

“We need her in Congress,” Heki said.

Bachmann dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Jan. 4, after finishing last among the candidates competing in the Iowa caucuses.

LUVERNE, MN -- Those thinking Rick Santorum would never be able to recapture what his campaign had in the Hawkeye State were wrong, at least for a night, when the Iowa caucus victor made a stop here in a town just ten miles north of the state that catapulted his candidacy.

Santorum held his first campaign event in a part of Minnesota just north of Lyon County Iowa, the northwest most part of Iowa with a large contingent of evangelical voters and an area where caucus returns were overwhelmingly in his favor.

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Even the originally scheduled venue, a Pizza Ranch restaurant , was reminiscent of his Iowa campaign.  He held more than 30 town halls at the restaurants located throughout the state.  Monday's town hall ended up being moved to a theater next door to accommodate the 300 person crowd, though he stopped by after to grab a bite.

"I figured, lets start bordering Lyon County as a point of strength...and make this the focal point, the starting point, for our campaign across Minnesota," said Santorum.

It was the former Pennsylvania senators first day back on the trail since his 3-year-old daughter was admitted to a Virginia hospital after developing pneumonia in both lungs.  Bella Santorum suffers from the genetic disorder Trisomy 18 and has battled the life threatening illness all of her life.  She is still in the hospital but has shown major improvements.

"I was with her last night in the hospital bed, laid with her and slept with her last night," said Santorum.  "She woke up this morning and had a big smile on her face and I thought, 'OK, dad can go back to work now.'"

He canceled campaign events in Florida on Sunday, and chose to continue his campaign with a stop in Missouri on Monday before heading to Minnesota.  He will watch Florida returns in from his Nevada headquarters.

"I don't know what's going to happen in Florida tomorrow, but it's only one race," he said. "Everyone says, 'Oh it's over then.'  It will not be. This race is going to go on a long time, and it needs to go on a long time."

Attempting to win over voters ahead of the Minnesota's Feb. 7 caucus, Santorum painted himself as the true social conservative in the race.

He talked about protecting anti-abortion rights and the importance of family -- points that have played less of a role in his stump speech since leaving Iowa.  Abandoning Florida the day before the primary shows he is focusing outside the expensive where he struggled to compete with his better funded GOP rivals and where recent polls have him a distant third.

"This is one of those races that we shouldn't make rash decisions just because someone has the most money.  Let me assure you, no matter how much more money Gov. Romney has than either Newt or I have, he's not going to have near the money President Obama's going to have.  So if you think that we're going to win this race because Gov. Romney will have more money to beat up Barack Obama, then Barack Obama will have to beat him up, you're wrong," said Santorum. "Having the most money isnt going to win this race.  having the best candidate with the best ideas"

It is caucus states like Minnesota, Colorado and Nevada were the presidential hopeful is now focusing in the hopes of being able to pick up delegates without having to outright win a state.  His message is that the baggage and records of his competitors will be a distraction in a head-to-head matchup with President Obama.

The general election "can't be about someone who is an undisciplined politician who is coming up with a new idea every ten seconds, most of which don't make any sense. Or someone who is a recent conservative in order to be able to win an election as is in both of their cases, on the major issues of the day,"

the GOP hopeful told the crowd.  Santorum has previously taken swipes at former Speaker Newt Gingrich for proposing a permanent U.S. base on the moon, Mitt Romney for never having won an election while running as a conservative.

The Santorum campaign will split time between Colorado and Nevada over the early part of this week.