Vice President, Vice Presidential Nominee | 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.

With a little more than a month to go before the vice presidential debate, Congressman Paul Ryan will endure his first full day of debate preparations Sunday.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan declined on Tuesday to back away from statements in his party convention speech that nonpartisan fact checkers have branded as false or misleading.

The Obama campaign is trying to put a new tag on Republican Medicare plans. "Voucher care." "We are for Medicare, they are for voucher care," said Vice President Biden on Sunday in Green Bay, Wis. "It's basic."

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 D. Ryan’s uncanny ability to develop relationships with like-minded conservatives while he worked on Capitol Hill helped lay the groundwork for his ascension to vice-presidential candidate.

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.

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.