Obama to launch three-day bus tour of Iowa today as Ryan leaves Romney bus tour of FL [View all]

[WI_DEM]

DES MOINES, Iowa — Newly tapped Republican vice presidential contender Paul Ryan is facing off against President Barack Obama as the front lines in the battle for the White House shift to Iowa.

While Mitt Romney continues a Florida bus tour, Ryan will meet voters at the Iowa State Fair, campaigning alone for the first time in the same state where Obama launches a bus tour of his own. Monday’s events may help determine whether conservative excitement for the Wisconsin congressman — and his controversial budget plans — will overshadow Romney’s own economic message.

Democrats are banking on it.

Since Romney formally named Ryan his running mate on Saturday, the Obama campaign has been attacking the Republican budget architect’s plans to transform Medicare into a voucher system and re-shape the nation’s tax system. That effort will continue as Obama kicks off a three-day bus tour across Iowa, making his longest visit to a single state yet as he seeks to fire up supporters who put him on the path to the presidency in 2008.

Ryan figures to play prominently in Obama’s message.

Attending campaign fundraisers in Chicago, the president tagged Ryan as the “ideological leader” of the Republican Party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/romney-re-energized-by-ryan-but-seeks-distance-from-new-running-mates-budget-plans/2012/08/12/a43922de-e4db-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html