those who geared up for this referendum will be front and center to pull romney through in wisconsin, but you re right, the battleground is clearly through the midwest. you have economic factors to talk about. it s not just what we ve imagined living with. now you have the drought, an area being hit by an act of god, by nature. it s having real effects with corn and with other crops too. corn is in every aspect of the economy. so you ll have farmers who are really hurting and that is something that makes the midwest even that more volatile for both sides. david, we talked about the geographical, now we have the demographic and the issue of seniors, and the issue of medicare and that brings us to florida and the third stop, i think, frankly the most important stop of this roll-out. now when we look at it. tomorrow is always important, the first roll-out, but the message when they hit the state
himself is concerned about. they don t have time to get ahead of this, or else they get quickly defined and being behind on medicare. because it s not just senior voters in florida or in other states, but the question of the entire middle class and whether paul ryan s views about taxes, entitlement, reform, is ultimately going to be something abhorrent to middle-class voters, the key voting group that the president wants to make this a contest over and wants to ultimately win. so there will be a lot of upfront work to do on what will be his biggest liability. there s no question mitt romney has thought this through about all the down sides to picking paul ryan and the medicare is flashing bright lights, but it s the overall message that a lot of romney advisers i talked to are talking about the need for romney to address, vp roll-out, in his convention speech, how is he going to win the middle class, particularly with
this referendum will be front and center to pull romney through in wisconsin, but you re right, the battleground is clearly through the midwest. you have economic factors to talk about. it s not just what we ve imagined living with. now you have the drought, an area being hit by an act of god, by nature. it s having real effects with corn and with other crops too. corn is in every aspect of the economy. so you ll have farmers who are really hurting and that is something that makes the midwest even that more volatile for both sides. david, we talked about the geographical, now we have the demographic and the issue of seniors, and the issue of medicare and that brings us to florida and the third stop, i think, frankly the most important stop of this roll-out. now when we look at it. tomorrow is always important, the first roll-out, but the message when they hit the state of florida the first time, that s a big deal. i know for a fact that it s something governor romney
in the lobby of the hotel where the campaign advisers are staying, having dinners and drinks with them in the neighborhood here and they were dark on it. they wouldn t say a thing about it. right now, despite a bus tour of reporters filling up the hotel, knocking on their doors, nobody s answering right now. they re waiting until tomorrow for the official announcement to be made. but az you ve noted earlier, one of the most compelling points that we noticed, an indication that m something was on the immediate horizon was the fact that there are five senior advisers traveling with mitt romney right now, the first time in the last eight months that we ve seen that many of his top advisers with him at a single time for a tour of this sort. they include eric furn strom, steen yor adviser, kevin madden, his wife ann, of course. bob white is one of his closest friends. stewart stevens, one of his top
also talking about this campaign behind the scenes, they want as much of a distinction between the two candidates as possible. well, evidence dentally mitt romney wants that as well because he is now with his choice of a running mate expected to be paul ryan, would paint a bright red line that says, we are for this and the president is for something else completely different in terms of the role of government, what government aught to do in a down economy and how government aught to take on the very real problems of such a huge budget deficit in a fiscal imbalance. so that would send a very strong signal. and i think that s an important point right now about the kind of final stretch that we are going to see. bright lines, big distinctions between these two candidates. you know, the other thing, david, about you have spent a lot of time with paul ryan and you have spent, you have had a lot of people on your show that the ryan plan has been the center of the debate that you have bee