Vice Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney | featured news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden and Republican rival Paul Ryan sought votes in political battleground states on Saturday while their running mates took a day off the campaign trail ahead of a potentially make-or-break debate next week.

Trailing in the must-win state of Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney asked his running mate Paul Ryan to meet him here this week. After 24 days apart, Romney and Ryan reunited on an airport tarmac on Tuesday amid grumbling from some Republicans that the campaign has grown complacent, leaving Ryan, its strongest advocate, off the national stage.

Conservatives had hoped that Mitt Romney’s choice of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) as his running mate would make Romney act more like Ryan — bold, specific, confident.

When Mitt Romney was searching for a ticket mate, Republicans pleaded: Don't pick another Sarah Palin. So it may come as a surprise that, in at least one important way, he ended up doing precisely that with Paul D. Ryan. Like Palin four years ago, the Wisconsin congressman has captured the heart of the Republican convention. The thunderous response to his speech Wednesday night was the latest indication.

Paul Ryan has dutifully set aside some key positions to support Mitt Romney's. It's something most vice presidential candidates have to do, but still opens him up to attacks as a flip-flopper.

Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate hasn't done much immediately to change the views of voters in the presidential race, a new Gallup Poll finds. Romney leads President Obama, 47% to 45%, among registered voters in Gallup surveys taken since Saturday, when the Wisconsin congressman was announced as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Janna Ryan is getting her moment in the political sun. The wife of Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP's vice presidential contender, already has a fan website (jannaryan.com). She's profiled in The Washington Post. And Yahoo! has written about Ryan's fashion sense, zeroing in on what she wore when Mitt Romney introduced her husband to the world.

It happens every four years in the dog days of summer: The presidential candidate - both of them, in some years - picks a running mate... in modern times, VP candidates rarely have helped the candidate lock it up in the home stretch of the campaign. And frequently they've been a drag.

Republican Paul Ryan's blueprint for Medicare could prove as polarizing in the campaign as President Barack Obama's health care overhaul has been. Even Mitt Romney may not want to go there....

Americans don't believe GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney hit a home run with his choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, with more of the public giving him lower marks than high ones.