KENOSHA, Wis. -- Three days after Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock sparked a firestorm for saying that pregnancies from rape are "something God intended to happen," Vice President Joe Biden linked the remark - along with another by controversial candidate by Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin -- to the Republican ticket. 

"They made it very clear that they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body," Biden said of Republican standard-bearers Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. "They can't even get up the gumption to condemn the statements made by 2 of their candidates for United states Senate."  

This summer, Missouri candidate Akin designated "legitimate rape" as a scenario in which physical pregnancy could not occur, prompting Republican leaders - including Romney - to urge him to exit the competitive race. 

Romney called Akin's language "offensive and wrong" but was less vigorous about Mourdock's statement, saying he "disagreed" but still backs him. 

"It's not enough to tell me you don't agree," Biden said Friday, alluding to Romney's distance from Mourdock's statement but refusal to rescind his endorsement of the Indiana candidate. "It's having the moral courage to stand up and say what they said was wrong, simply wrong." 

Biden has consistently been critical of the Republican ticket's views on abortion, but he has not specifically named either of the two controversial Senate candidates before. 

The vice president's critique came at his last event of a day-long swing through Wisconsin. He will travel to Lynchburg, VA tomorrow for a rally, but the campaign has cancelled a planned Virginia Beach event due to an impending storm. 

If Ohio has been President Barack Obama’s “firewall” – the state guarding against a disappointing Electoral College result on Nov. 6 – then the president’s re-election team might consider Obama’s well-publicized auto industry rescue as a type of firewall within a firewall.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands on a table as he addresses an overflow crowd as he campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012.

Obama has taken every effort to remind voters in Ohio of his authorization of a 2009 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler that is widely credited with preserving the companies as they stood on the brink of catastrophe. In the same breath, the president is sure to mention the op-ed – “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” – penned by Romney for the New York Times, which called for a managed bankruptcy for the automakers supported partially by government guarantees.

There are real differences between how Obama sought the auto industry rescue and how Romney, judging by his own comments at the time, might have engineered support for GM and Chrysler. But if the Republican presidential nominee manages to win Midwestern states like Ohio and Wisconsin on Nov. 6, he could point to his recent messaging on the auto bailout as a reason why.

Romney has essentially tried to take credit for Obama’s actions, arguing that it was the president who ended up following Romney’s counsel all along, and lead GM and Chrysler toward a “managed bankruptcy.”

"He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that’s right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy’s and Continental Airlines and come out stronger," Romney said at last week's second presidential debate in New York. "And I know he keeps saying, 'You want to take Detroit bankrupt.' Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did."

Romney’s semantic argument, though, obscures a gulf between him and Obama over how such a managed bankruptcy would have been managed and its implications for the industry.

First Read wrote in February – as Romney sought to win Michigan’s Republican primary – about the precise differences between Obama and Romney when it comes to the bailout.

The separation between Romney and Obama on the issue of the bailout stems from two issues. First, Romney argues that interests of the labor unions were unfairly favored over some of GM and Chrysler's private creditors. The government-supervised bankruptcy did this, he argues, by allowing the autoworkers’ retirees program an equity stake in the restructured GM in exchange for providing financial support for the bankruptcy.

Second, Romney appears to differ with the president over the extent to which government itself should have stepped forward with money to help stave off liquidation of GM and Chrysler and provide for the restructuring process. The administration's approach did this in the case of GM by essentially establishing a new, restructured company in which the government became a majority shareholder. (Romney argued Tuesday for the government to divest itself from the company.)

Romney's position in the past has been that the private sector could have stepped forward to finance and more effectively manage the bankruptcy process -- especially in a way that would have treated private stakeholders in the companies more fairly.

One of the key points, though, involves the type of support Romney would have offered to the companies. His original op-ed called for the government to back warrantees and guarantee private sector financing for the companies when they emerged from bankruptcy. But the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the various bailouts questioned whether any private financing would have been available in the first place, given the credit crunch in early 2009.

“Gov. Romney, you keep on trying to, you know, airbrush history here,” Obama said on the topic of autos Monday evening at a third debate versus Romney. “You were very clear that you would not provide, government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn’t true.”

Setting aside the candidates’ very different approaches, what is clear is that, for months now, Romney has tried to play offense on the issue of autos. And his success in states like Ohio – where one in eight jobs is said to have ties to the auto industry – may depend on Romney’s ability to convince Midwestern voters that GM and Chrysler would be doing just as well as they are now if he were president instead of Obama.

It appears voters are interested in learning more. As a New York Times spokesperson noted on Twitter, Romney’s original Nov. 18, 2008 op-ed, skyrocketed Tuesday to the top of the list of the most-read stories on the Times website.

The economy remains the top issue for voters, and a new set of data released Friday paints a picture of an uneven economic recovery in a series of battleground states.

Of the nine states categorized as "battleground states" by NBC News, five had state unemployment rates below the national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in September, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The other four states suffered from a higher-than-average jobless rates, the highest of which was in Nevada; the BLS said that 11.8 percent of Nevadans were unemployed through September, the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. (One U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, had a higher jobless rate.)

Friday's news is the last series of state-level unemployement data voters will receive before Election Day. One last national jobs report is due Nov. 2, the Friday before voters head to the polls.

President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have each made jobs the centerpiece of their respective campaigns. The president got a boost earlier this month when the BLS report showed the unemployment rate dropping below 8 percent for the first time in years, disarming Romney of one of his most potent cudgels versus the president.

But as each Obama and Romney travel the country over the next 18 days looking to secure the 270 electoral votes they need to win the White House, economic optimism might be brighter in some states and still dim in others.

The five states with unemployment rates below 7.8 percent included Iowa (5.2 percent), New Hampshire (5.7 percent), Ohio (7.0 percent), Virginia (5.9 percent) and Wisconsin (7.3 percent).

The four battleground states with unemployment rates above the national average are Colorado (8.0 percent), Florida (8.7 percent), Nevada and North Carolina (9.6 percent).

If, for purposes of speculation, Obama were to win the battleground states with jobless rates beneath 7.8 percent along with all of the other states considered more safely in his column, he would win the Electoral College, 288-250.

But politics, of course, are not that simple. For instance, the number of employees on nonfarm payrolls in Ohio actually decreased between August and September, though the unemployment rate dropped from 7.2 percent to 7 percent over the same period.

But as Obama argues that the economy is moving forward and Romney asserts that the recovery has not been sufficiently robust, it's helpful to remember how those arguments might sound different to voters in differing states.

WAUKESHA, WI – Paul Ryan played up his Badger State roots in suburban Milwaukee on Monday, hoping to add Wisconsin to the Republican column in a presidential election for the first time since 1984.

Speaking at a town hall with just 22 days before the election, the Republican vice presidential nominee encouraged the crowd to vote early, which voters can do beginning in a week, on Oct. 22.

“Let’s not forget, early voting starts pretty soon, so you can vote early, you can vote early absentee so that you can make sure we work on making phone calls and getting people to the polls because you know what we learned here in Wisconsin?” the seven-term Wisconsin congressman said before the roughly 1,300 people at the event. “We learned that if you’d say to people here’s who I am, this is what I believe in, and this is what I'm going to do, in Wisconsin we elect them and then they go do it and that’s exactly what we’re going to do for the United States of America we’re going to take on these challenges in this country.”

Wisconsin -- which is considered a battleground state by NBC News -- has 10 electoral votes to award in the upcoming election and both Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama’s campaigns are putting an emphasis here. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed Obama leading Romney in the state, 50 percent to 45 percent.

”Let’s make sure that we win Wisconsin. Let’s get out to the polls. Let’s get people there. We are on a winning streak here in Wisconsin. Let’s keep that winning streak going,” Ryan, joined by both of his brothers sitting beside him, said at Carroll University.

Though Wisconsin is generally seen as more sympathetic to Democrats in presidential contests, Republicans have made significant inroads here in recent year thanks to Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, a native of the state, and Gov. Scott Walker, who survived a recall election after curbing public workers' collective bargaining rights.

While Walker joined Ryan here today, both Walker and Priebus appeared with Ryan at a fundraiser for former governor and current U.S. Senate candidate, Tommy Thompson, Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee.

“I think it is wonderful that Wisconsin has become the epicenter of politics – Republican politics -- we are on a role ladies and gentlemen. And these three champions back here are the current and the future leaders of the Republican Party,” Thompson -- who is running in a tight race with Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin --  said at the Harley Davidson Museum as he motioned towards Ryan, Walker, and Priebus.

Ryan's Wisconsin roots were on full display early Monday morning as he gave a shout out to his favorite football team during his ninth public event in the state.

“Nothing better than going to bed with 6 TDs under Aaron Rodgers’s belt, huh? That was an awesome game, I got to tell you to go down to Texas against a 5-0 team on the road and have that kind of performance it reminds me of what it's going to look like on November the 6th,” he said, noting the Packers tie he was wearing.

The VP nominee heads to Ohio, another crucial state, this afternoon where he will hold a rally in Cincinnati.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., during the vice presidential debate at Centre College Oct. 11, 2012, in Danville, Ky.

 
The Associated Press reviewed 8,900 pages of correspondence between Ryan's congressional office and more than 70 executive branch agencies that it obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They showed that for 12 years as a member of Congress, Ryan has sought from the federal government money and benefits that in some cases represent the kinds of largess and specific programs he is now campaigning against.

Related: Ryan wades deep into lengthy Afghanistan argument
 
As Mitt Romney's running mate, Ryan calls those kinds of handouts big-government overreaching. He tells crowds he supports smaller government and rails against what he calls Obama's wasteful spending, including the president's $800 billion stimulus program. 
"The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst," Ryan said during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. "You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal."
 
And during Thursday's vice presidential debate, Ryan said the stimulus amounted to "$90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special-interest groups."
 
But Ryan's constituents benefited from stimulus spending and other government-assistance programs, according to AP's review. Ryan once told federal regulators that cutting a stimulus grant for a town in his district at the 11th hour would be "economically devastating." 
Much of Ryan's correspondence is similar to other lawmakers performing constituent duties, describing problems that residents have reported. They include requests such as assisting a family missing airline baggage and helping a man who didn't receive a pancake maker he had ordered.

Related: Biden plays aggressor in debate as Ryan argues GOP case
 
But in other correspondence, Ryan explicitly supports programs and encourages federal agencies to take actions. He supported in his congressional letters some Wisconsin farms' share of an $11.8 million loan guarantee, but later criticized other loan guarantees, such as the $535 million loan that went to now-defunct solar panel maker Solyndra. He asked transportation officials for a grant for green technology and alternative fuels, although his proposed budget as House budget chairman called loans for electric car development "corporate welfare."
 
He's also supported federal money to help a Kenosha, Wis., community center cover health care costs of low-income families under Obama's health care reform law — the very program he and Romney say they will repeal if they win the White House.

 
Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said AP's findings represented a member of Congress helping people in his district. "Part of being a congressman is vouching for constituents and helping them navigate the federal bureaucracy when asked," he said.
 
Among the ways Ryan went to bat for his constituents, as detailed in his correspondence:
 
—A Kenosha, Wis., community center's grant proposal under the Food Stamps Access Research program, to educate families about the nutritional benefits of food stamps. Ryan said in a 2002 letter the program would increase the enrollment of eligible individuals in the program by providing laptop computers to pre-screen applicants. Ryan's budget proposed cutting food stamps by $134 billion over 10 years, although his spokesman said he "has always made clear we need a strong safety net." 

—Letters offering support or forwarding requests for projects funded by stimulus money. Ryan's May 2009 letter to a regional Environmental Protection Agency office asked for its "full consideration" in awarding grant money to an organization under the National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program, which reduces diesel emissions. 

Ryan also wrote to the EPA in 2009 on behalf of a small town trying to secure $550,000 in stimulus money for utility repairs. Ryan, whose staff requested meetings with the EPA about the matter, said the rescinding of the grant "would be economically devastating" to Sharon, Wis., since it already began spending the money. (The EPA said project costs were incurred before October 2008, making the project ineligible for stimulus cash.) Ryan has also voiced support for millions in EPA grant money to clean up abandoned building sites in Wisconsin towns.

—A 2002 Department of Agriculture loan guarantee to develop a pork-packing and processing plant for farms in the region, including some in his district. The new factory appeared to be "state of the art" and worthy of funding, he said, adding: "It is my hope that the USDA will reach a favorable decision" on the application for a 60 percent federal loan guarantee toward a $19.7 million loan. 

—A Kenosha health center's request to use money under Obama's new health care law to help meet health care needs of "thousands of new patients" who lack coverage. Ryan's December 2010 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, first reported by the Nation magazine and also obtained by the AP, appears at odds with his pledge to repeal "Obamacare." 

—Support for a grant for the Historical Society in Milton, Wis., from the National Park Service for $271,000 in order to preserve a Civil War-era home. Ryan supported the plan in 2002, saying historical artifacts inside the former transfer point for slaves "have aged to a point where aggressive preservation and restoration is needed to save them." Meanwhile, he's supported recent cuts to the federal budget that would invariably affect national parks.

View Ryan's correspondence here.
 
The AP obtained requested documents from nearly every executive branch agency, although many have been slow to provide any relevant files. Some Obama administration agencies declined AP's request to quickly turn over materials even though they involve an election that's just weeks away.

Andrew Innerarity / Reuters

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan waves to supporters while holding a cup of coffee during a campaign stop at a Cuban restaurant and coffee shop in Miami on Saturday.

BELOIT, Wis. -- Paul Ryan has been campaigning as Mitt Romney’s running mate for six weeks but it wasn't until this week that the Republican vice presidential nominee finally pulled out a tool from his own Wisconsin playbook: a PowerPoint presentation.

“I'm kind of a PowerPoint guy so I hope you'll bear with me,” the Wisconsin congressman and budget guru joked to a crowd full of supporters Saturday afternoon in Orlando, Fla.

Speaking on the campus of the University of Central Florida, the wonky Ryan used four different slides to help demonstrate the problems with the nation’s debt and how spending has changed under President Barack Obama.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said the use of the presentation – which was displayed on two large television monitors inside a gymnasium – was “simply another tool to highlight President Obama's failed leadership."

But it’s also a staple of Ryan's campaigning for his seven terms in the United States Congress.

Ryan’s congressional re-election campaign spokesman, Kevin Seifert, told NBC News a PowerPoint presentation is “a staple of Congressman Ryan's townhall meetings” – which, Ryan himself pointed out, he has held more than 500 with his constituents over the years. Seifert added: “It is a great way to explain problems like the debt and deficits and always has spurred great discussion with constituents in the first congressional district.”

Florida politicians help Ryan woo Hispanics

After debuting the PowerPoint slides in Florida, Ryan went on to hold a nearly 30-minute question and answer town hall session with the couple thousand-person crowd.

This “new” prop comes just following reports casting Ryan as “mini-Mitt” -- that is, the Romney campaign had forced the congressman to follow the lead of the nominee, rather than letting him be himself. Plus, early Friday morning, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker publicly chided the Romney campaign for not “effectively” utilizing the GOP vice presidential nominee. But, Ryan told reporters, he is happy with his role.

“I feel really good about it [his role]. Look, I am doing the things I want to do,” he said Friday inside Walker’s Produce, a fruit stand in Lakeland, Fla. “Look at what we are doing, we are talking to local people, going around the country talking to local press. I am excited about my role. I feel very comfortable with it.”

The quick event, though, marked Ryan’s first retail drop-by since Aug. 25, when he stopped by the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester, N.H., despite holding more than 50 events in the last month and a half.

In the lead-up to his VP selection, Ryan would answer questions from the press practically whenever reporters would have questions. In the month and half since being tapped on Aug. 11 to fill this new position, the congressman has yet to do a formal press conference. Friday, standing inside the fruit stand, was the first time Ryan has answered questions from the press on the ground (he has held two quick gaggles on board his press plane flying between states).

When the House Budget Committee chairman first joined Romney’s ticket in August, he was forced to align his views with his running mate noting “no two people agree on every single issue” and Romney is the top of the ticket.

But as the weeks go on, it appears Ryan is settling into his role as Romney’s number one surrogate on the campaign trail. Perhaps this weekend is the start of Ryan being allowed to insert more of himself into the ticket with just 44 days left before Election Day.

As it is sometimes said on the campaign trail, it is always good to “let Paul be Paul.”

Two polls out Wednesday show President Barack Obama on top of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the swing state of Wisconsin.

Obama leads, 54 percent to 40 percent, in a Marquette University Law poll released Wednesday afternoon. The same poll found Obama with a narrower, 49 to 46 percent, lead over Romney before both party conventions, and shortly after the Republican candidate named Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

President Barack Obama greets guests during an event to honor the WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx , at the White House on September 18.

A separate poll of Wisconsin voters conducted by Quinnipiac University, the New York Times and CBS News also found Obama with an advantage in the Badger State. Obama led by six points, 51 to 45 percent, in that poll released this morning.

NBC News considers Wisconsin a "toss-up" state for purposes of its battleground map. NBC News will have the results of a third poll of Wisconsin, conducted in partnership with Marist College and the Wall Street Journal, on Thursday.

The Marquette poll was conducted Sept. 13-16 and has a 4.1 percent margin of error for its sample of likely voters. The Quinnipiac/NYT/CBS poll was conducted Sept. 11-17 and has a 2.5 percent margin of error.

President Barack Obama will stump next weekend in Wisconsin, his campaign announced Friday, marking his first trip to the state since February.

The president will deliver remarks at a grassroots event on Sept. 22 in Milwaukee, battleground territory in Wisconsin, a state considered an Electoral College "toss-up" on NBC's battleground map. It's his first trip to the state since Feb. 15; Obama even avoided going to the state during a high-stakes effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

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No Republican has won the Badger State, though, since Ronald Reagan in 1984. That hasn't stopped Mitt Romney from trying to put the state in play, more prominently by adding Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, to his ticket. The Romney campaign also purchased advertising airtime in the state, forcing the Obama campaign to respond in kind.

The latest New York Times/CBS News/Quinnipiac University poll found Obama leading Romney, 49 percent to 47 percent, among likely voters.

Obama's trip -- combined with recent visits by Vice President Joe Biden -- would seem to suggest that the president's campaign doesn't fully consider Wisconsin safely in its column on the path toward collecting the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency.

But unlike Romney, Obama has more paths to 270 available to him even if he were to lose Wisconsin.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. -- Reaching out to college-age voters Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden pitched the Obama administration's goals for improving the nation's education system and accused the Republican ticket of ignoring the issue entirely.

"Listen to what they say," Biden said of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in remarks to about 3,000 on the campus of the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. "They hardly mention education at all except in the negative context."

The vice president accused Ryan of teeing up "massive cuts" to early education and Pell grant funding in his budget, and he argued that the GOP ticket would allow commercial banks back into the federal student loan market.

"They want to go back and have the banks be in charge of negotiating and processing your loans, costing the government 60 billion dollars in payment to the banks over the next ten years," Biden told the crowd.

Listing off items like teacher recruitment, student loan repayment caps, and scholarship funding, Biden pledged that "by the year 2020 we are determined that we will once again have the highest percentage of college graduates of any nation in the world.”

Romney, who touched on education policy during a Virginia rally today, and Ryan have focused mainly on policy issues like school choice and accountability for schools. While Ryan's budget addresses changes in education funding, the candidate himself has not laid out specific education cuts. 

"During President Obama's disappointing term in office the cost of college has skyrocketed and an increasing number of recent graduates are being forced to move back in with their parents because they can't find a job," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said. "Vice President Biden is launching more dishonest attacks because he can't defend the Obama administration's abysmal education record and he is incapable of having a serious discussion about education policy. As president, Mitt Romney will work to make college more affordable and accessible for all students, and implement pro-growth policies that will create jobs for them when they graduate."

The recent teachers' strike in Obama's hometown of Chicago has cast a spotlight on education policy in the campaign, although Biden did not mention it in his remarks Thursday.

The vice president received a warm welcome from the mostly younger crowd in Wisconsin, his third trip the state this campaign cycle and his second since Ryan, a Wisconsin native, was picked as Romney's running mate.

He won applause for joking that he's "supposedly an expert on foreign policy," quipping that "an expert is anyone from out of town with a briefcase."

Biden's next campaign trip to a swing state will be a two-day tour of Iowa early next week.

JANESVILLE, WI -- Paul Ryan's sendoff to the Republican convention on Monday was mostly a family affair, as a well-wisher brought a photo of Ryan's late father to a farewell rally.

Alex Moe/NBC News

David Green (middle), shows off photo he brought of the bowling team from the 1960s with Paul Ryan's father, Paul Murray Ryan (far right).

“That’s my dad,” Paul Ryan exclaimed as he took the black-and-white photo from a man in the crowd.

“That’s my dad’s bowling league. Look at that. That’s my dad right there,” Ryan said and eventually handed the photograph to a staffer: “Be careful with that.”

Longtime family friend, 87-year-old David Green, brought the photo of the late Paul Murray Ryan, taken back in the 1960s, to show his son, who could be the next vice president of the United States.

Memories like this were shared all morning Monday.

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman, Paul Davis Ryan, has never forgotten his roots and today, the family man returned to the small Wisconsin town he has called home for the past 42-years to say thank you.

“Hello, Janesville. It's good to be home,” an emotional Ryan told the crowd inside his former high school’s gymnasium a few blocks from his home here. “I want to thank our neighbors on Courthouse Hill for indulging all of this and for their patience. We really appreciate that.”

(A security perimeter of several blocks has recently been put up around Ryan’s home.]

He continued: “And I want to thank everybody in the broader community. Thank you. I know this has put a lot in Janesville, and I want to thank you, and I want to just tell you how proud I am to come from Janesville, Wisconsin.”

Just two days before the biggest speech of his life, the presumptive GOP vice presidential nominee returned to the town where he was born and raised – and is currently raising his family – for a send-off rally before flying to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL.

The congressman was joined by his wife, Janna, and three children: Liza, Charlie, and Same (who wore a Romney-Ryan cheesehead), for the first time since the weekend he was tapped as Mitt Romney’s VP.

“Life has changed since I last saw you,” Janna said on the ropeline and was even given a bumper sticker by an attendee that read: “Romney Ryan and ME!”

“I love it! I love it!” she exclaimed.

Ryan’s mother, Betty, and brother, Tobin, were also in attendance at the rally inside Joseph A. Craig High School.

“It’s -- I don’t have words for it,” Ryan said when asked what it was like to be a rockstar here in his town.

And many in the crowd had very fond memories of Ryan throughout the years.

Family friend, Julie Lyons, wearing a “Team Janna” homemade t-shirt to support the family behind the politician, recalled how “normal” Ryan is and how he just liked to be “one of the kids.”

"We have traveled with them [The Ryan’s] to different places," Lyons said, who has twins the same age as Ryan’s 10-year-old daughter. “I’d say all the parents, including Paul, are always very involved in the kids activities and whether it is riding paddle boats or fishing or cookouts, he is one of the kids."

And Mary Kanavas, whose husband was in the Wisconsin State Assembly and knows the Ryan’s, says no one loves their hometown as much as Ryan.

“There are many people that are from many places in the world but Ryan eats it, breathes it, sleeps it, walks it -- he loves this town and I think that is what people are so excited about,” she said. “He is an honest to God child of Janesville and I think he will make them very proud.”

President Barack Obama leads presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in Wisconsin in the first major poll of Badger State voters since Rep. Paul Ryan was added to the Republican ticket.

Forty-nine percent of likely Wisconsin voters said they would vote for Obama if the election were held today, versus 46 percent of voters who said they would vote for the Romney-Ryan ticket, according to a Marquette University Law poll released Wednesday.

That's a much closer margin than has separated Romney and Obama in this swing state for much of 2012; the two candidates were tied in Marquette's likely voter model in mid-May, but Obama opened a wider lead over Romney during the course of the summer. The law school's last poll conducted before the Ryan pick had Obama ahead, 50-45 percent.

NBC News currently rates Wisconsin a "toss up" in its ratings of swing states this fall. But no Republican presidential candidate has won there since President Ronald Reagan in 1994. Nonetheless, the GOP ticket did campaign there shortly after Ryan was named Romney's running mate, and some Republican super PACs have spent on television advertising in the state.

To that end, 29 percent of registered Wisconsin voters said the choice of Ryan made them more likely to vote for Romney, and 13 percent said it would make them less likely to support the former Massachusetts governor. But 53 percent said Ryan's addition to the GOP ticket had no impact on their vote.

**Also of note: Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, on the heels of his victory this month in a three-way Republican primary, leads Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin in the race for Wisconsin's open Senate seat.

Fifty percent of registered Wisconsin voters said they would vote for Thompson, versus 41 percent who would back Baldwin. Both are running to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl.

The poll, conducted Aug. 16-19, has a 4.2 percent margin of error for its sample of likely voters, and a 3.8 percent margin of error for its sample of registered voters.

Certainty – that’s what business owners need in order to invest, expand, and hire workers. That’s the argument Republicans have been using for months to urge President Barack Obama to agree to extend current tax rates for another year.

Now with drought afflicting states from Florida to Wisconsin to Oregon, it is Obama who’s using the “certainty” argument, saying that Congress must “pass a farm bill that not only helps farmers and ranchers respond to these kinds of disasters, but also makes necessary reforms and gives them some certainty year-round.”

The Senate passed its $970 billion farm bill on June 21, but the House hasn’t acted on $958 billion farm legislation passed by the House Agriculture Committee last month.

“Too many Americans are suffering right now to let politics get in the way” of passing a new farm bill, Obama said last Saturday in his radio address. But politics seem inescapable, especially 11 weeks before Election Day.

Obama, who campaigned this week in drought-stricken Iowa, is trying to use the drought as a political lever to get the House to pass its farm legislation and come to terms with the Senate so a final bill could be sent to him for his signature.

That seems unlikely to happen before the current farm bill expires on Sept. 30.

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If the farm bill does expire and if a new one isn’t signed into law, it will not affect crop insurance for farmers. Crop insurance is authorized not through the farm bill, but through a separate law. The most recent five-year agreement between the federal government and the private companies that carry out the farm insurance program was reached in 2010.

But next year growers of corn, soybeans and other crops may need to pay higher premiums for their crop insurance – because a significant loss of crops due to drought or other factors lowers their average production history and that affects premium levels, said Sam Willett, senior director of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association, a group that represents more than 36,000 corn farmers.

Disaster assistance programs for livestock and dairy producers and for growers of specialty crops such as cherries expired on Sept. 30, 2011. The Senate-passed farm bill would reauthorize that disaster assistance money.

Responding to the drought, the House did pass a stand-alone $256 million disaster relief bill to help farmers, ranchers, orchard owners, and nursery tree growers on Aug. 2. The vote was 233 to 197, with 35 Democrats, many from farm states such as Iowa and Indiana, joining 188 Republicans in supporting the bill. But that measure is not a full five-year farm bill.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said, “This is not a long-term solution, but it takes care of the problem until we can get a five-year farm bill on the books…. I am committed to giving certainty to our farmers and I plan to work toward that goal when we return in September.”

Although the drought and the food stamp program – or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – aren’t directly related to each other, it’s the opposition to SNAP funding levels that is one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of an accord on a new farm bill. This isn’t surprising since nutrition assistance spending accounts for about 80 percent of the total cost of the farm bill.

Among many congressional Republicans, “There’s substantial concern about the level of nutrition program cuts not being high enough” and “you have the opposite on the Democratic side” – a belief that SNAP was cut too much, said Willett.

The Senate farm bill would reduce outlays for SNAP and other nutrition assistance programs by $4.5 billion over ten years, but would still spend nearly $770 billion on SNAP. The House Agriculture Committee farm bill would reduce SNAP outlays by $16 billion.

The Corn Growers Association supports an effort in the house to get 218 members to sign a discharge petition that would force the Ag Committee’s bill to be brought to the House floor for a vote.

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Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Daily Rundown Wednesday that “the market is adjusting” to the drought conditions and that both his state and the federal government are taking steps to help livestock producers such as allowing grazing on state land and opening conservation reserve lands to grazing.

Explaining the opposition by some Republicans to the farm bill, Branstad said, “The biggest problem I think a lot of people have is a massive expansion of the food stamp program. We have more people on food stamps than ever before; they’ve liberalized the rules, and a lot of people think they need to tighten that up, just like we reformed welfare in the 1990s … .”

It’s not only food stamps – conservative farm state Republicans have an array of complaints about the Obama administration’s policies toward farmers and ranchers. Agriculture Committee member Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R- Kan., issued a statement Wednesday accusing the administration not only of “vastly expanding the food stamps rolls by 45 percent," but of “continuing the regulatory assault on our farms and ranches” and “supporting a huge increase in the death tax at the end year.”