Vice President, Mitt Romney | featured news

While vice-presidential debates typically don't have much bearing on the presidential contest, tomorrow night's Joe Biden-vs.-Paul Ryan showdown has put pressure on both sides. Team Obama NEEDS a strong performance from Biden to make up for last week and change the subject; another bad outing by a member of the ticket and the Democratic handwringing could turn into a full-fledged panic. Meanwhile, Team Romney needs a solid outing from Ryan to keep up the momentum. As we wrote last week, consider tomorrow night Game 2 of a baseball playoff series. After ace Romney beat ace Obama in Game 1, Democrats are looking for their No. 2 starter, Biden, to even the score. And Republicans are looking to go 2-0. That's what at stake Thursday, and that's why there's more pressure on Biden than on Ryan.

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.

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.

His bet is that the era of triangulation is over: that Republicans can win elections without having to compromise. Or, perhaps, in an era when so few voters are truly undecided, he thinks a robust turnout from the Republican base could be enough to get him the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

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.

A senior political adviser to President Barack Obama is likening Mitt Romney's selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin. David Axelrod tells "CBS This Morning" he recalls "that kind of excitement four years ago" when McCain presented Palin to the country as his choice for vice president. Axelrod says in Monday's interview he thinks the selection of Ryan, who is popular with tea party figures - as Palin was - is "not going to be a plus for Mr. Romney."

Paul Ryan’s path to Saturday’s surprise announcement that he would be Mitt Romney’s running mate began with a walk in the woods. But these were not just any woods. No, these were the woods where the Wisconsin congressman grew up. To escape his Janesville home undetected on Friday, Ryan snuck out his back door, walked through the woods behind his house and past the old tree fort he built as a boy and the driveway of his childhood home.