JANESVILLE, Wis. -- Campaigning for the GOP nominee in his home state with just 100 days before the presidential election, Congressman Paul Ryan said he is confident Mitt Romney can win here in the Badger State this November.

"We haven't gone Republican on top of the ticket since 1984 but we think this time is different. We think it’s different because people in Wisconsin are tired of the direction Washington is going. They don't the president's policies have worked," Ryan told NBC News in an interview Sunday evening. They think, “this is not the uniter. This is not the hope and change. This is a man who is dividing us, who is giving us terrible economic policies, who is growing government, who is growing the debt, and that just doesn't rub right with Wisconsinites."

And the Republican National Committee Chairman predicted victory as well:

"If we win Wisconsin, I think it is lights out for Barack Obama," Chairman Reince Preibus told reporters in Waukesha.

Addressing crowds at Victory Centers throughout Wisconsin this weekend, Rep. Ryan was joined at points by Sen. Ron Johnson and the RNC Chairman, who is originally from Wisconsin. These events – complete with an official Romney bus -- were part of a big surrogate push throughout the country while Romney is overseas.

"This is a national campaign. All these battleground states, what we  want to do is get the message out, President Obama's policies aren't working, we need to go a different direction and we also want to thank all our volunteers," Ryan said -- avoiding the question if this surrogate blitz is really a tryout to be Romney's vice presidential pick.

Sen. Johnson weighed in briefly on the VP speculation.

"I think Paul would do a phenomenal job as vice president.  Nice thing that Gov. Romney has a lot of great choices.  So I've got faith that he'll choose a good one," the senator said.

But Rep. Ryan, who earlier in the day attended the Dousman Derby Days parade and fair where he participated in the 2012 Wisconsin State Frog Jump contest, continued to avoid any talk of being on Romney's ticket.

"I don't think it does the Romney campaign any help or favors to speculate or feed the speculation on this stuff so that's why I just don't make comments about it," he said when asked if he was a 'dark horse' for Romney to select.

The Wisconsin Congressman heads to the 19th District of Florida Monday to campaign for Chauncey Goss who is running for Congress before heading back to Washington, DC for the week.

PHILADELPHIA -- Mitt Romney doesn't "get" fire fighters, Vice President Joe Biden charged Wednesday, marking the complete return to political combat after last weekend's pause following the Colorado theater shooting.

Speaking to over 3,000 fire fighters at their annual convention in Philadelphia, the vice president said that Romney "means well" but that he and his party fail to grasp the motives of public sector workers who put their lives in jeopardy for others in their communities.

"I think part of the problem is I don't think he gets you," Biden said. "I don't think he really understands - I mean this sincerely - I don't think he understands what you're all about, what makes you tick, what makes you decide to go into this profession, which you couldn't pay enough to 90 percent of the population -  including me  - to do what you do every day."

Biden, who emotionally referenced the role of firefighters in saving his sons' lives in the 1972 crash that killed his wife and daughter, lamented a "perfect storm" of economic woes and anti-union campaigns that have hit at the core of the hook-and-ladder profession.

"They act like you're the community's problem," he said of Republican lawmakers aiming budget cuts and other reforms at unionized public sector workers. "As if you're not part of the community. As if somehow you're from some other place. As if you haven't been as affected by this recession as your neighbors have, not because you're a firefighter, because you're a middle class citizen."

The vice president, whose recent comments describing a de-facto "depression" for America's unemployed were vigorously highlighted by Republicans, on Wednesday described the country as "barely" out of the economic recession.

"This is about shared responsibility," he said, noting the administration's push for tax hikes on high earners. "You know as well as we do the country is out of this recession but barely and struggling to move forward. I mean, you have ... blood brothers, blood sisters, who because of this recession are out of work."

The Romney campaign responded with a statement from Fred Donnelly, a retired battalion chief of the Philadelphia fire department.

“Joe Biden can come to Philadelphia, and he can try and tell the hard working men and women of this city that he understands what we’ve been going through. But no matter what he says, he can’t cover up the words of the president," Donnelly said. "The President may think the private sector is ‘doing fine.’  He may want small businesspeople to believe that they ‘didn’t build that.’  But we know that he is simply out of touch with the struggles that middle-class Americans are going through, and that he doesn’t understand what drives the American economy.” 

Biden's remarks, while perhaps slightly less pointed than a typical campaign speech, marked a public return to the partisan punches that preceded last week's massive shooting at an Aurora, Colorado theater.

Mentioning the heroism of rescue squads in that community, Biden lauded fire fighters for aiding at the massacre's scene and for dismantling the shooter's booby-trapped apartment.

"You were there ready to do whatever was needed if the worst happened," he said.

FT. LAUDERDALE, FL -- Mitt Romney has asked Beth Myers, the manager of his 2008 campaign and a longtime trusted aide, to head up his search for a running mate, Romney advisers told NBC News on Monday.

Myers, who served as Romney's chief of staff during his tenure as Massachusetts governor and ran his 2008 campaign, is one considered to be one of Romney's closest -- and most tight-lipped -- political advisers.

"I've asked her to be the person who oversees the process of the vice presidential selection and vetting an analysis and so she's begun that process and is putting together the kinds of things you need to do to vet potential candidates," Romney told ABC News in an interview Monday.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Mitt Romney has asked Beth Myers, the manager of his 2008 campaign and a longtime trusted aide, to head up his search for a running mate, Romney advisers told NBC News.

Romney also said in the interview that he only began seriously talking about selecting a vice president this weekend, while fundraising in Florida.

The presumptive Republican nominee declined to reveal names on his shortlist, but has in the past praised the deep bench of Republican governors and other legislators -- and said that his primary concern in selecting a running mate would be that the person be able to assume the presidency immediately, if necessary.

At a town hall event last September in Arizona, Romney praised former Vice President Dick Cheney, and suggested the former head of the Defense Department and one-time White House chief of staff had the kind of experience he would look for in selecting his own running mate.

"That's the kind of person I'd like to have --  a person of wisdom and judgement," Romney said of Cheney.