MINNEAPOLIS -- Vice President Joe Biden will join the thousands of Republicans set to descend on Tampa next week for their national convention.

"Any of you going to be in Florida?" Joe Biden joked to reporters after stopping at football practice at South High School in Minneapolis, MN. "Well, I'm the speaker at the convention, so I'm gonna be down there."

Campaign officials confirmed earlier Tuesday that Biden will attend campaign events in Tampa and other cities next week, coinciding with the Republican National Convention in the Florida city.

In a counterprogramming effort to Mitt Romney's formal acceptance of his party's nomination, Biden will appear in the area Monday and Tuesday.

The choice of Biden -- who caused a days-long uproar last week by suggesting that Republicans and Wall Street would "put y'all back in chains" -- signals that Biden is not stepping back from an aggressive role as the tip of the campaign's spear in attacking the GOP ticket.

That aggressiveness was on display Tuesday at a campaign rally in Minnesota, where Biden jabbed at Romney for "changing his tune" on China after comparing the opposite party to "squealing pigs" over their objections to Wall Street reforms.

"Over the objections where they sound like squealing pigs, over the objections of Romney and all his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history," Biden told a crowd of over a thousand at The Depot in downtown Minneapolis.

The vice president poked fun at Romney for past instances of changing political positions.

"Romney's changing his tune," Biden told the crowd. "I know that surprises you. I know you're shocked. Now he's talking tough on China, says we're not tough enough with China."

"I wish he had been that tough when the companies owned by Bain were exporting thousands of jobs to China," he added.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Rick Santorum began what could end up being a very good day for his campaign emphasizing the importance of the Colorado caucus during the first of three campaign stops in three different states on Tuesday.

Santorum made stops in Colorado and Minnesota, which host caucuses tonight, and will end the day in Missouri, where voters head to the polls for a primary.  Signs indicate Santorum could do well in all three contests, possibly even win one, prompting Santorum to stress the importance of the three states and taking shots at other candidates claiming to not compete there.

"Colorado is a state that, four years ago, Gov. Romney won with 61 percent of the vote. He won and he campaigned hard here. He didn't pass it off like he's been doing the last couple of days and saying, 'Oh, well these are just non binding caucuses, they don't really matter much,'" said Santorum here this morning. "Well they mattered four years ago when he came out here and he campaigned in these very same states. You have an opportunity to reset this race, you have an opportunity to put the best person forward that can defeat Barack Obama tonight."

Missouri in particular has been dismissed by candidates and pundits as nothing more than a beauty contest. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not be on the ballot there, and Tuesday's non-binding primary will be followed by a caucus next month. It's the state where Santorum has the best chance of winning and where Mitt Romney's campaign has downplayed expectations.

Though he may not officially win any delegates today, any victory for Santorum would be a much needed boast for a campaign struggling to remain relevant since a victory in the Iowa caucuses. Winning Missouri would allow Santorum to boast of a head-to-head victory against Romney, since Gingrich wasn't on the ballot. Along with breaking Romney's winning streak, it could help lend credibility to Santorum's argument that he is the best alternative GOP candidate to the former Massachusetts governor.

"We need to have a conservative alternative and my feeling is that Speaker Gingrich sort of had his chance in the arena and came up short in Florida and Nevada and now it’s our turn hopefully to get a one-on-one in Missouri," Santorum said on Monday at the Colorado School of Mines.

While the Romney campaign has been taming expectations with email blasts warning that their candidate cannot win every primary and caucus, Santorum is doing the opposite.

"If you're looking at the polls, today could be a very good day for the conservative cause," Santorum said.

JOHNSTOWN, CO -- Mitt Romney's campaign spent Tuesday morning tamping down expectations ahead of tonight's nominating contests, going so far as to say they expect to lose the Minnesota caucus to Rick Santorum.

The former Massachusetts governor's campaign circulated a memo and talking points to reporters this morning reminding them that no delegates are bound by tonight's caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and another primary in Missouri, while reminding interested parties that John McCain lost 19 states in  his successful run for the nomination in 2008.

A senior campaign official also said yesterday he expects Romney will lose Minnesota today -- a state he carried four years ago -- but that the contests remaining in February (and the other ones set for March) all favor point toward Romney being able to gain momentum cement his status as the campaign's frontrunner. This morning's memo from political director Rich Beeson closed by underscoring that same point.

"Speaker Gingrich’s and Senator Santorum’s campaigns have resource challenges. The remaining February states may not be kind to them, and their hopes for a comeback in March may be very difficult and based on an incomplete understanding of the delegate selection rules.  Even “success” in a few states will not mean collecting enough delegates to win the nomination," Beeson wrote. "In contrast, Governor Romney will be competing across the country and collecting delegates in state after state, even if other candidates pick up some wins.  This is exactly the sort of methodical, long-haul campaign we planned for, and we are well on the way to victory."

Romney's campaign made this argument as the candidate himself made a final appearance in Colorado before tonight's caucuses.

The event, though, did not get off to a smooth start.

Thirty minutes after Romney was scheduled to arrive, a woman standing in the front of the crowd suffered a medical problem requiring police attention. She remained on site and was later moved to a VIP seating area. With Romney still absent forty minutes after campaign advisories said the event was scheduled to begin, the candidate called in to the room via Skype, and provided a pixelated and electronically-garbled apology for being late.

When he finally did arrive, nearly an hour behind schedule (a rarity for the tightly-run Romney campaign), Romney apologized for his truancy, blaming weather.

"I really appreciate the warm welcome on such a cold and snowy morning, I guess it took a long time to get the snow off the windshield of the bus. So it slowed us down, but it did not slow you down, so I appreciate your willingness to be here, and to participate in this process," Romney said.

During his speech, Romney once again accused President Obama of waging an "assault on religion," for his position on ministerial exemptions, and on the ongoing battle between the administration and the Catholic church over a new health care mandate.
 
"Just in the last several days the administration has said, under Obamacare, that religious organization like schools, catholic schools, catholic hospitals and so forth have to provide for free contraceptives and free morning after pills, abortive pills, for all of their employees in violation of the religious conscience of those organizations," Romney said this morning at a rally north of Denver. "This kind of assault on religion will end if I’m president of the United States."

Democrats have pushed back since last night, when Romney first spoke about the issue, accusing him of hypocrisy by pointing to similarities between the federal law -- which requires religious organizations like hospitals, colleges and charities to provide birth control under their health plans -- and a similar provision under Romney's Massachusetts health care reform law.

GRAND JUNCTION, CO -- Mitt Romney's campaign has begun to train its sights on Rick Santorum over the past 48 hours, reflecting the Romney campaign's concern that the former Pennsylvania senator may pose the freshest threat to their frontrunner status.

The Romney campaign released a barrage of opposition research on Santorum on Monday morning, the type of offensive tactic that had previously been reserved for Newt Gingrich and, before him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former Massachusetts governor's campaign worked to link Santorum to pork barrel spending during his time in Congress, and touting his endorsement of Governor Romney in the last presidential race. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty assailed Santorum's record on spending during a conference call with reporters, listing the litany of earmarks Santorum had supported -- and has subsequently defended -- during his time in Congress.

And, in a reflection of the changing dynamics in the GOP nominating battle, Pawlenty sought to downplay expectations for Romney's performance in tomorrow's Minnesota caucuses -- a minor nominating contest, but one in which Santorum believes he might be able to score a February upset.

"I think it's going to be a tight race. Mitt Romney is competitive here," Pawlenty told Andrea Mitchell in an MSNBC interview this afternoon, repeating a point he made on the conference call. "I think you'll see a clumping result tomorrow. But it's certainly a place where other candidates are going to have a stronghold, and it's not going to be a walk in the park for Mitt Romney."

Why the change in focus? It's reflective of a change in political geography and political realities that opens the door for Santorum to climb back into the top tier of candidates this week.

Social conservatives make up a greater proportion of the voters in Minnesota, whose caucus-goers might most closely resemble caucus-goers in Iowa -- the contest in which Santorum barely edged Romney on Jan. 3. Unlike in Iowa, though, Romney doesn't have the benefit of having spent the kind of money as he did in Iowa, and his infrastructure there is less developed than it was in the Hawkeye State.

Campaigning this morning in Rochester, and clearly enjoying the chance to scrap with the frontrunner, Santorum delivered a speech attacking Romney for his Massachusetts healthcare plan, labeling it "Obamneycare" -- a term coined, ironically, by Pawlenty this June.

"The press likes to write the story that there is an inevitability to 'Obama light' on health care being the Republican nominee. That would be a devastating thing for the chances of us who would like to see President Obama defeated in the next election," he said. "Gov. Romney is dead wrong on the most important issue of the day and he should not be our nominee."

Santorum's campaign has aggressively circulated the results of computerized polling (data not used by NBC News) suggesting a surge in momentum for their candidate in Minnesota.

For the Romney campaign's part, they've largely ignored Minnesota and Missouri. Romney hasn't campaigned in Missouri at all in 2012, and has made only one stop in Minnesota: taking part in a rally in Eagan last week. Today, Romney will send surrogates John Bolton and Pawlenty to campaign for him in Minnesota, while he campaigns in Colorado for the next two days.

On Jan. 30, Romney was asked by a reporter what states he thought could present uphill battles going forward. Minnesota was the first state to pass his lips, and he described it as one of a number of states that present "challenges and opportunities, and as a "state that’s hard to predict how they’ll make their decision."

LAKEWOOD, CO -- Rick Santorum is fighting to portray himself as the top conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, a message he'll take to voters in a series of forthcoming caucuses.

At Colorado Christian University on Wednesday, the presidential hopeful said Newt Gingrich has had more success courting voters in early primary states because of an incorrect notion that the former House speaker is in a better position to challenge Mitt Romney. But, Santorum charged, Gingrich's inability to capitalize on a decisive South Carolina primary victory in Florida shows he does not have the support to challenge the former Massachusetts governor.

"In Florida, Newt Gingrich had his opportunity," Santorum said in Las Vegas on Tuesday as Sunshine State returns showed Gingrich finishing second.  "He came out of the state  of South Carolina, he came out with a big win and a lot of money,  and he said 'I'm going to be the conservative alternative. I'm going to be the anti-Mitt.' And it didn't work. He became the issue."

The former Pennsylvania senator is taking a renewed focus on Gingrich after losing to his rival in the two most recent primary contests. But Santorum faces a tough balancing act between steering clear of the personal attacks candidates have leveled against each other, while drawing contrasts with his GOP foes. One of Gingrich's chief liabilities among conservatives are the ethics charges leveled against him as speaker and his rocky marital history.

Newly-released television and radio ads take aim at Gingrich, in both cases questioning his conservative credentials. Still, Santorum claims to still be remaining above the fray by focusing on issues, not personal matters.

"What I talked about is policy, I didn't attack the speaker for working for a company or, you know, things that he did in his past in his life.
I went out and focused on the policy differences between Speaker Gingrich and me," he said. "I think that's fair game."

But it was just a day earlier when the GOP hopeful, working to remain relevant in the nominating contest, said Florida's results prove Republicans need to have a candidate without "personal baggage."

Now Santorum is tasked with convincing the electorate that he can effectively take on Romney, after losing to Gingrich by substantial margins. His focus now turns to Colorado, Nevada, and Minnesota -- caucus states where he has the opportunity to pick up delegates without having to win outright.

"If Newt's out of the race, all of his votes come to me," Santorum said. "They aren't voting for Newt not because he's the best candidate, it's because they think he can win."

And despite the tough path ahead, the candidate said he has no plans of quitting.

"This race is just beginning. Only four states have spoken. There are 46 others," he said.

EAGAN, MN -- On his campaign's flight to Minnesota this morning, Mitt Romney vigorously defended his economic message and engaged in a bit of damage control when asked by a reporter to explain his comment on CNN that he is "not concerned about the very poor."

"No no no no. No no. You've got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different. I've said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is gonna be devoted to helping middle income people, all right? We have a safety net for the poor in, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that. And if there are people that are falling through the cracks I want to fix that," Romney said. "Wealthy people are doing fine. But my focus in the campaign is on middle income people. Of course I'm concerned about all Americans -- poor, wealthy, middle class, but the focus of my effort will be on middle income families who I think have been most hurt by the Obama economy."

On CNN this morning, Romney gave a shorter version of that response, upon which both Republican and Democrats quickly seized, looking to paint the Republican frontrunner as uncaring and out of touch. (Rick Tyler, a spokesman for a pro-Gingrich super PAC tweeted about the quote.)

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it," Romney told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

The line, problematic in soundbite form, is by no means new to Romney's stump speech or interview talking points. Romney frequently discusses the need to help the middle class rebound from the effects of the recession as a primary motivating factor for his campaign.

Romney's also spoken in the past about his concern for the impoverished.

"I'm concerned about the poor in this country. We have to make sure the safety net is strong and able to help those who can't help themselves," Romney said in South Carolina. "I'm not terribly worried about the very wealthiest in our society, they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the vast middle class of our nation, the 90 percent of Americans, the 95 percent of Americans who are having tough times."

On the plane this morning, Romney also conceded that he did see holes in the safety net that would need fixing.

"Oh I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are places where people fall between the cracks. And finding those places is one of the things that is the responsibility of government. We do have a very ample safety net in America, with Medicaid, housing vouchers, food stamps, earned income tax credit. We have a number of ways of helping the poor," Romney said. "And yet my focus and the area that I think is the greatest challenge that the country faces right now is not, is not to focus our effort on how we help the poor as much as to focus our effort on how to help the middle class in America, and get more people in the middle class and get people out of being poor and becoming middle income."