CLINTON, Iowa -- Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan sought to add some specifics to Mitt Romney's proposals on Tuesday amid criticism that the GOP ticket hadn't fully detailed its plans.

Responding to a woman's question about why Ryan wouldn't answer a question this past Sunday on Fox News about the Romney-Ryan tax plan's math, Ryan argued the television format didn't give him enough time.

Kevin Schmidt / AP

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan speaks to a crowd in Clinton, Iowa Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012.

“When you get into math conversation, it can take a little while. Let me give you some specific answers right now,” the Wisconsin congressman said early Tuesday morning standing outside the Clinton County Courthouse. He continued to tick through their 5-point plan for a strong middle class including about energy, education, trade.

“The problem is, it just took me about 5 minutes to go into all of this with you and when you are on a 30-second TV show, you can’t do it as much. But the point is, go to our website, you can see all this,” Ryan said after a several minute riff about their policies. “Mitt Romney has put more specifics, more details about how to grow the economy, about how to save Medicare, Social Security, about how to prevent the debt crisis than the incumbent President of the United States has.”

President Obama’s re-election campaign shot back at these claims in a statement.

"Congressman Ryan can't attend his own campaign rallies without being called out for failing to provide specifics about what Mitt Romney would do if elected. That's because just one day before the first debate, Mitt Romney has refused to say which deductions he'd cut for the middle class in order to pay for his $250,000 tax cuts for multi-millionaires,” spokesman Danny Kanner wrote. “And he's refused to say how he'd replace Obamacare or Wall Street reform to protect middle class families or prevent the big banks from writing their own rules again. They won't share those details with the country because they know that the details are bad for middle class Americans.”

Ryan’s stop here along the Mississippi River was a homecoming for his wife, Janna, and her two sisters and father, who joined at the event in Eastern Iowa. Prudence Petersen Little, Janna’s mother, moved to a house in Clinton when she was very young and Janna’s grandmother remained in the home until 2004.

The Ryans stopped by the red-painted home following the town hall here to meet with the new owners and the three Little girls reminisced on memories of visiting when they were growing up.

The congressman finishes off Tuesday in the Hawkeye State with two more events in Muscatine and Burlington.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

A voter fills out his ballot during the first day of early voting for the November election, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012, at the Polk County Election Office in Des Moines.

Republican Mitt Romney is struggling in swing-state Iowa at a perilous point: just as voters here start casting early ballots in the presidential race. 

President Barack Obama has a clear lead in Iowa opinion polls, helped by the fact that the state's economy is far more robust than other battleground states. The president's polling edge is so wide it has prompted grumbling among Iowa Republicans who fault Romney for failing to take advantage of Obama's standing, which had been weakened in the four years since Iowa launched his bid for the White House in 2008.

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"There still is time to win, but we are in the fourth quarter," said Nick Ryan, a veteran Iowa Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's caucus campaign.

Iowa is hardly the largest prize in the race for 270 Electoral College votes. But the six it offers could be pivotal if the race is close.

Iowans on Thursday can begin voting in person at early voting sites and returning absentee ballots they've requested by mail or in person. Iowa Republicans are mindful that the perception of Romney in deep trouble could sway voters already casting ballots — or dissuade volunteers from encouraging backers to turn out at the polls.

The state knows Romney and Obama well; both competed here in 2008. And Romney came close to winning its caucuses in January.

"A lot of people I know are excited about Romney," said Susan Geddes, a Republican from Indianola, just south of Des Moines. "And a lot of people I talk to are like me, and just want it over with."

Since locking up the GOP nomination in the spring, Romney has visited the state six times and has poured $8 million into television advertising here. GOP-leaning groups have tried to help, spending $20 million in TV ads criticizing Obama. But Romney hasn't been to the state since Sept. 7, when he made a trip to the Republican-heavy northwest. And he has paid scant attention to the blue-collar voters along Iowa's eastern edge, where unemployment is running higher than in the state overall and where he needs a big turnout to overtake Obama.

The Republican's team insists that he hasn't given up on the state and that he and his running mate, Paul Ryan, plan to spend more time in Iowa in the final weeks of the campaign.

"You're going to see the governor and Paul Ryan talking a lot directly to voters, having more opportunities to do that," campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said.

Aides argue that Romney has built a more sophisticated voter-contact system than Republican John McCain did in 2008, when Obama carried Iowa by 9 percentage points. And although Romney has only 14 staffed state campaign offices, compared with Obama's 67, Republicans say they have made more than 1 million contacts with voters by telephone and in person.

If the polls are right, the GOP ticket has a lot of ground to make up.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist Poll taken last week found Romney trailing Obama by 8 percentage points, a finding that mirrored recent internal polls from Democrats and Republicans alike. The poll also found that only 40 percent had positive feelings about Romney, down from 43 percent in May. Conversely, Obama saw his favorability rating improve to 53 percent from 48 percent over that same period.

Those figures illustrate why Obama's campaign is increasingly confident about its Iowa prospects even as aides say they expect the race to tighten somewhat as undecided voters focus on the election.

Democrats say Obama has benefited from his Iowa strategy of blanketing the state with eight presidential visits ahead of early voting. Obama hoped that his frequent visits, as well as constant appearances by Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Michelle Obama, would help him build a lead over Romney ahead of Election Day, when Republicans traditionally have had an edge.

Obama focused his attention on more populous and politically diverse eastern Iowa. The small and medium-sized cities, many with struggling manufacturing sectors, were friendly territory for Romney in the Iowa caucuses but now show him trailing Obama in internal polling. Obama's three-day, statewide trip in August touched down in less-traveled cities in north- and south-central Iowa. He also made a well-publicized visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

The president also has run more than $20 million in ads, including many that characterize Romney and his positions as those of a wealthy, detached former business executive. Obama allies also have spent roughly $3 million in advertising.

Obama aides say Romney's criticism of Obama's handling of the economy has been less effective here than it has been in states such as harder-hit Florida and Nevada. In August, Iowa unemployment was 5.5 percent, up from July but far below the national average of 8.1 percent.

But Obama aides also say Romney hasn't made as much of an effort to build a personal connection with voters in a state where face-to-face campaigning is key, and they say his comment about 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income tax has been problematic.

"He doesn't think poor people are his problem," Oskaloosa Democrat Pam Douglas said. "They are his problem if he wants to be president." 

OTTUMWA, IA -- Vice President Joe Biden, the man who is often the first to charge into the political fray on President Barack Obama's behalf, held his tongue Tuesday in regard to a controversy involving Mitt Romney.

Asked by reporters to comment on the GOP presidential nominee's surreptitiously recorded comments referencing 47 percent of Americans do not "take personal responsibility" and feel "entitled" to government benefits, Biden said only that he'll let Romney's words "speak for themselves."

Related: Conservatives reaction mixed to Romney 47 percent video

Biden, appearing at a campaign event in swing state Iowa, did not mention today's firestorm over the Romney comments during a 25-minute speech to about 450 supporters, concentrating instead on familiar attacks over the GOP ticket's Medicare and tax proposals.

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The Romney remarks were recorded at a fundraiser earlier this year and leaked to magazine Mother Jones. Late yesterday, the candidate said the sentiment was expressed in an "inartful" way but that he stands by his overall philosophy of smaller government.

Biden next heads to Grinnell, Iowa this afternoon before wrapping up his 2-day tour of the Hawkeye State.

Updated at 4:30pm ET Iowa is crucial to President Barack Obama winning a second term and just in case the Iowa delegates at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., might forget that fact, even for a moment, an all-star cast of speakers is showing up at the Iowa delegation’s breakfasts this week to flatter them, exhort them and remind them of how important they are.

John Brecher / NBC News

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker speaks to Iowa delegates at their breakfast event prior to the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Sept. 3, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Iowa delegates gave rousing welcomes to mayors Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., Monday morning at the delegation’s breakfast.

Related -- First Thoughts: The enthusiasm gap

Noting that he had worked as a union organizer for 25 years before being elected to the California legislature, Villaraigosa said Democrats’ grass roots organization is the key to victory. “We’re going to be knocking on doors, we’re going to be calling voters; we know that Iowa is critical to this election and I hope to visit.”

In fact, the Los Angeles mayor will be the keynote speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner on Oct. 20.  

Booker warned the delegates of the lack of fervor that cost Democrats the New Jersey governor’s race in 2009. “If we had the same kind of enthusiasm, the same kind of energy, the same kind of organizing, the same kind of voter turnout that we did in 2008, we would have easily won in 2009,” Booker said. “The point is very simple: it’s not about them, it is about us, it is about how well we organize, how much we go door to door.”

Booker mentioned to the Iowans that his great-grandparents moved to Iowa from Alabama and that his grandmother was born in Des Moines in 1918. Telling the delegates that the election has big consequences – such as who appoints the next Supreme Court justice – Booker again brought up his family roots in assessing the election’s impact: “What’s exciting to me is that just like my personal family history, it’s going to turn on the state of Iowa.”

John Brecher / NBC News

Sue Dvorsky, Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, listens to Newark Mayor Cory Booker speak to Iowa delegates at their breakfast event prior to the Democratic National Convention on Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Iowa is where it all began for Obama with his dramatic caucus win in 2008 and it might be where victory is decided on Nov. 6. The importance of the state’s six electoral votes was underscored again this week by the rival campaigns’ scheduling: Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will be speaking at rallies in Adel and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday.

And Obama is heading back to Iowa the day after his acceptance speech to rally young voters at the University of Iowa – after just having campaigned in Sioux City and Urbandale on Saturday.

Iowa ranks sixth among the states in the amount of money being spent on TV ads by each side, behind Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado, according to NBC ad tracking data. The Obama campaign and Democratic outside groups have spent $22 million in Iowa so far, compared to $24 million spent by the Romney campaign and GOP outside groups.

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Alluding to the enthusiasm gap that Booker warned against, delegate Dennis Roseman, a retired University of Iowa mathematics professor and an active and early Obama supporter in 2008, said that things today are different from four years ago when Obama won Iowa in the caucuses and again in November.

“Four years ago was very exciting, it was all very new, it was all about change and what’s possible,” Roseman said. “We didn’t have the depth of the economic problems that we are facing right now. Even though things are improving, people’s attitudes are somewhat negative, having suffered through a lot. So right now it’s a struggle, no doubt about it.”

He added, “We’re doing really well in our part of the state and there’s a lot of enthusiasm – but we have a big state and we have to really fight hard to stave off either complacency or a certain amount of negativism.”

A big student vote for Obama is vital. In 2008, Obama won 70 percent of the vote in Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, with a margin of more than 30,000 votes over Republican John McCain.

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Since Iowa is already a state with very high voter registration, Sue Dvorsky, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said the Democrats concentrate on adding new voters by registering college and university students “which can’t happen until they get back (to school in September) so now that effort is full-blown.”

Obama’s Friday campaign event at the University of Iowa will focus on college students “because we know that’s where our new registrants are,” Dvorsky said.

Republicans point to the 28,000 increase in active GOP voter registrations since 2008, but Dvorsky explained this by pointing to competitive GOP intraparty battles which had spurred interest among Republicans. “They’ve had three consecutive primaries. They had a very, very vigorous gubernatorial primary in 2010 that we didn’t have, then they had the (presidential) caucuses with multiple candidates and multiple winners that we didn’t have. And then they had a record number of primaries against their own (state legislature) incumbents – from the Right.”

As for the Republican advantage in voter registration (as of August), Dvorsky said she anticipated that when the Iowa Secretary of State’s office releases new numbers on Tuesday “we will have bitten into that substantially.”

She added that Republicans greatly improved their voter turnout effort in 2010, for example, “their vote by mail went by about 100 percent.”

But she portrays the Iowa GOP as divided among the Ron Paul forces, the Rick Santorum backers, and Mitt Romney’s supporters, calling it “a party that is still fairly fractured.”

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She also pointed to another motivation for Democrats to turn out on Election Day: the battle for control of the state Senate – the last line of defense for Democrats against legislation they oppose, since Gov. Terry Branstad is a Republican and the state House is Republican-controlled.

The Democrats now hold a one-seat majority in the state Senate. On Election Day, there will be 26 competitive state Senate elections.

“We believe we are in an existential position: we have (a) one seat (majority) in the Senate,” she said. “It must be retained. There is no option for us to fail.”

Asked about the Republicans’ great success in 2010 elections in Iowa and whether that’s a harbinger for this November, State Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said, “You can point to 2010 and I can point to 2011 – last fall, a special election in a suburban district, Cedar Rapids, handpicked by the Republicans to pick up after appointing a Democratic state senator to the Iowa Utilities Board. They thought that was a seat they were pretty much guaranteed to get back” and create a tie in the state Senate.

But, Gronstal said, “We put together a great get-out-the-vote effort. We do that better than the Republicans in Iowa and we won that election handily in the end.”

Obama must rely on that same kind of get-out-the-vote effort on Nov. 6 to keep Iowa in his column.

President Barack Obama set off on a college tour on Tuesday intended to recapture young voters' enthusiasm heading into the height of his re-election campaign.

The president told an audience of Iowa coeds that they should be more invested in his campaign than any other age group, during a stop at Iowa State University in Ames.

"The truth is you've got more at stake in this election than just about anybody. When you step in that voting booth, the choice you make in that one instance is gonna shape your country and your world for decades to come," Obama told about 6,000 students. "I know that's a pretty heavy idea to lay on you on a Tuesday but it's true."

Obama warned that his Republican opponent Mitt Romney, if elected, would enact policies that would be detrimental to college-aged students and recent graduates, seizing on Romney’s opposition to the national health care law, which has allowed students up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans.

"Gov. Romney promised that sometime between taking the oath of office and going to the inaugural ball he'd sit right down, grab a pen and kick 7 million young people off their parents' plan by repealing health reform," the president said.

Playing on the Republicans’ derisive term for the law – "Obamacare" – the president said, "Maybe we should call his plan Romney Doesn't Care. Because I do care."

Speaking in front of thousands of enthusiastic college students is an unusual route for an incumbent to take while his opponent’s party is kicking off its convention, but the president took a full-steam-ahead approach, even taking a jab at the Tampa confab during his Iowa speech.

“It should be a pretty entertaining show,” Obama said. “It will be and I’m sure they’ll have some wonderful things to say about me,” he continued, referring to Republicans gathered in Tampa.

The president’s three-state college tour, which after Iowa takes him to Colorado and Virginia, taps into two key elements of his 2012 re-election strategy: winning a combination of battleground states as well as repeating his lopsided victory among college-age voters.

By the end of this trip, the president will have visited five colleges in August alone, all of them in key swing states: Rollins College in Florida; Capital University in Ohio; plus the three schools in Iowa, Colorado and Virginia.

The good news for Obama in recent polling? He’s still leading Mitt Romney 52 to 41 percent among young voters, a key part of his winning 2008 coalition.

BETTENDORF, IA -- Mitt Romney returned Wednesday to the core issue of his candidacy -- the economy -- in Iowa, the state that played host to the first nominating contest of the primary cycle.

Following two weeks of distractions, the GOP contender once again focused his remarks on the single animating issue of his campaign: the economy.

“Now the president promised that he was gonna cut the deficit in half. Yeah, it didn’t happen, did it? He’s more than doubled it. He’s added almost as much debt held by the public -- $5 trillion – as all the prior presidents of the country combined," Romney told an audience of more than 1,000 supporters at a factory here in Eastern Iowa. "You look at all of the debt of the country, why it’s about the size of our entire economy. This puts us on a path to become like Europe."

Since the selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney has fought a running battle on the issue of Medicare, aired a series of debunked attacks on welfare reform, and been forced to wade into the controversy of Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's controversial comments on rape. Today in Iowa, he touched on none of the above, instead hammering President Obama over his stewardship of the economy.

Romney was helped in his economic case today by the release of the latest report by the Congressional Budget Office, which said that the 2012 fiscal year would be the fourth consecutive year in which the federal government ran a deficit greater than $1 trillion dollars, and which predicted unemployment would remain above 8 percent for the remainder of the year.

"You see, we don’t have to guess what the future looks like if we stay with the current president," Romney continued. "We can see what’s happening over in Europe."

Democrats quickly responded.

“Mitt Romney today said that a Romney-Ryan White House would make America stronger, but we know that’s not true," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement, calling the Republican platform "the same failed formula that crashed the economy and devastated the middle class in the first place.”

With President Obama campaigning at a high school in Nevada today to tout his education policies, Romney also engaged on the subject, calling for an education system that was competitive on the international stage, and for putting students and their parents ahead of the teachers unions, a favorite Romney bogeyman.

Even Romney's attack lines on education had an economic tinge to them.

"You have got to make sure that we create jobs in this country so that people coming out of school can get a good job, Romney said, laying out his education goals with advice to President Obama. "You don't max out their credit card if you will by giving them something that they're having to pay for down the road plus interest, what you do is you make sure that we do not pass on trillions of dollars in debts to the next generation."

DAVENPORT, IA -- At every stop on his three-day bus tour through Iowa, President Obama told audiences how he’d visited a slew of small towns, looking to reach as many voters as he could in his bid to clinch this key swing state.

He was also quick to point out – perhaps as part of that strategy – that he drank an awful lot of beer.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event Aug. 15 in Davenport, Iowa, during a three day campaign bus tour through Iowa.

The cold ones started flowing Monday night, when Obama made an unscheduled stop at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, forgoing the Butter Cow to head straight to the Bud Tent.

At first the president seemed intent only on boosting the sales of Bud purveyor Mike Cunningham, who said his business had been shut down since 5pm so that the Secret Service could secure the area.

“Everyone who’s over 21, you gotta buy a beer!” Obama told the crowd.

But when a man asked the president if the brews were on him -- prompting a cheer of “Four More Beers!” (a take on the incumbent’s campaign cheer, "four more years") -- the president obliged.

“I’ll tell you what, except for the [guy with the] Romney sign, I’ll buy beers for 10 people,” he said, handing out drink tickets to the thirsty onlookers.

Finally the president made his way back to Cunningham, who handed him a full plastic cup and an on-message t-shirt: “Save Water, Drink Beer.”

The president clearly wanted the crowds at subsequent stops to know that he had consumed the Great American Beverage, as well as one of its culinary counterparts: pork on a stick.

Obama's endeavors shed light on the nexus between pints and politics, as candidates seek to prove that they’re relatable by answering that time-honored question: “Would you have a beer with the guy?”

A PRIMARY BEER-OFF
This isn’t the first time Obama has sought to answer that question in the affirmative.

In the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both tried to prove they were the most ordinary Joe/Jane by knocking a few back with the locals.

At a stop in a Pennsylvania bar in March of 2009, the president downed the regional favorite – Yuengling, the local favorite – but got caught not really knowing what it was.

“What do they call it? A Yuengling?” he asked a male patron.

Perhaps not believing him, the man repeated the word, adding, “Like you didn’t know.”

“Is it expensive, though?” Obama continued. “Wanna make sure it’s not some designer beer or something.”

(Fast forward two years to a friendly Olympic hockey wager between the U.S. and Canada in which now-President Obama bet a case of – you guessed it – Yuengling).

Not to be out-drunk by her primary opponent, Hillary Clinton sidled up to the bar at Bronko’s in Crown Point, Indiana a few weeks later, downing two mugs of Old Style beer and a shot of Crown Royal whiskey as cameras flashed.

Such photo ops are unlikely to come from the challenger this campaign cycle, as Obama’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney abstains from alcohol for religious reasons.

THE PRESIDENT’S ‘BEER GARDEN’ STRATEGY
In 2011, Obama divulged that the White House does in fact have its own brewery, which he was asked about during a Tuesday stop at a coffee shop in Knoxville, Iowa.

To convince the curious on-looker, Obama asked a campaign aide to go to his bus and grab a bottle of White House Honey Ale as a token of authenticity.

It’s a pretty unique campaign trick. Obama may not be the only politician with a brewery (he shares that distinction with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper), but his is the only one with the presidential seal on it.

Another perk of the nation’s top job? A 24/7 campaign video team, on hand to document every moment that captures the incumbent in a positive light, including his three beer-centric “OTR,” or off-the-record, stops in Iowa.

The trip to the state fair seemed to be Obama’s favorite (or the one he thought would resonate with voters the most) because he was still regaling audiences about it two days after it happened.

At a rally Wednesday in Dubuque, his wife Michelle, who had joined him on the podium for the day, asked him what he had consumed at the fair.

“Pork chops and beer,” he responded, grinning.

“He’s so pleased with himself,” his wife quipped with a smile. 

Among Iowa voters, it seemed to be working.

Waiting for the president to arrive in Davenport for his final speech of the trip, John Gilkison, 56, said that he thought Obama’s beer drinking made him seem like a “normal person.”

“It just makes him human,” he said. “Makes him seem more open.”

Gilkison’s friend, John Wisor, 45, was particularly enthusiastic about the president’s public displays of drinking – not a surprise, given that he owned the bar across the street from where the president was about to speak. 

Inviting the president over, Wisor said, “I hope he does come over and have a beer.”

OSKALOOSA, IA – President Obama seemed to reference the infamous tale of the Romney family dog riding on the roof of the presumptive GOP nominee's car for most of a road trip during an extended riff here on wind energy.

Criticizing Mitt Romney’s opposition to wind energy production tax credits, Obama also went personal, bringing up an anecdote about a Romney family vacation.

Obama mocked what he said was Romney’s wind energy policy, quoting him from a March 6 speech in Zanesville, Ohio when he said, “you can’t drive a car with a windmill on it.”

“That’s what he said about wind power,” Obama told about 850 supporters standing outside a classic, American flag-bedecked farmhouse at the Nelson Pioneer Farm Museum here.

“Now, I don’t know if he’s actually tried that. I know he’s had other things on his car,” Obama said as the crowd applauded, understanding the reference.

Liberal critics and Democratic groups supporting the president have pounced on the Seamus story to criticize Romney's character, suggesting Romney is insensitive, but this is the first time the president himself has referenced it himself. (Obama aides have previously invoked the story.)

But after the quick Seamus allusion, the president went right back to accusing Romney of not understanding the importance of wind energy in Iowa.

“If he wants to learn something about wind, all he’s got to do is pay attention to what you’ve been doing here in Iowa,” the president said, noting that the wind industry now supports 7,000 jobs in Iowa.

And new statistics from a Department of Energy report on wind power, which the president referred to Tuesday, also reflect the importance of wind as a policy and political issue: it’s one of the top two states when it comes to in-state wind energy generation, generating 18.8 percent in 2011, second only to South Dakota.

“If [Romney] knew what you’ve been doing, he’d know that 20 percent of Iowa’s electricity now runs on wind,” Obama said to applause. “Powering our homes and our factories, and our businesses in a way that is clean and renewable.”

In a statement the Romney campaign said Obama's Seamus reference showed that the president "will do anything to distract from his abysmal record."

"After sanctimoniously complaining about making a 'big election about small things,' President Obama continues to embarrass himself and diminish his office with un-presidential behavior," campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. 

After a series of local interviews here, the president heads to campaign events in Marshalltown and Waterloo, continuing to wind his way east through the state.