Republican VP candidate Ryan to visit Clinton, Muscatine on Tuesday

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will be in southeast Iowa on Tuesday, making stops in Clinton, Muscatine and Burlington.

The stops are part of a two-day swing through Iowa, a key swing state in the 2012 election.

Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, is kicking off the trip with a Monday night rally at Loras College in Dubuque, where his grandfather went to school. Full details of his stops on Tuesday have not been released. But an invitation to the Clinton event says it will be a town hall meeting at 9 a.m. at the Clinton County Courthouse, 612 N. 2nd St. Entry to the event begins at 7 a.m. Priority seating tickets can be picked up at the Republican Party offices in Davenport, 311 W. Kimberly Road.

This will be the first time Ryan has been to this part of the state since being picked for the GOP ticket by presidential nominee Mitt Romney. He has been to Iowa but only to the Des Moines area and Cedar Rapids.

“We’re getting him outside the major cities, which we needed to do,” said Dave Kochel, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign in Iowa.

Romney campaign and Republican officials have said they’re placing a premium on eastern Iowa, including the Quad-City area. Sarah Pompei, a Romney spokeswoman, said voters in this part of the state are open to their message. Gov. Terry Branstad and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, performed well here in the 2010 midterms, and GOP leaders said their economic message sells in this part of the state.

In some parts of southeastern Iowa, the economy hasn’t responded as well as it has in other parts of the state. That might be highlighted by a campaign that has tried to keep the economy the focus of its efforts.

This also is an area that campaign officials say is similar to Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, a southern Wisconsin city of 64,000 people. He has relatives on his wife’s side of the family who live in Clinton, and his mother-in-law grew up there, the campaign says.

Ryan also will visit some of the same areas that Vice President Joe Biden toured last week. Biden was in Muscatine and Burlington.

The Republican ticket has been criticized in some quarters for focusing too much of its travel on the Des Moines area. Romney was in Bettendorf on Aug. 22, but the GOP ticket hasn’t matched the breadth of travel that President Barack Obama and Biden have engaged in.

There were several weeks in August and September that the president made weekly stops in the state, including a three-day bus tour that stopped in Iowa’s smaller towns and its urban areas. That frequency has tailed off somewhat, but some polls have said the president has gained ground here since then. Some Republicans have challenged the accuracy of those polls.

Ryan is popular with grassroots Republicans, and his visit is likely to draw sizeable crowds. In addition to Iowa, Republicans hope to put Wisconsin in play. The state voted for Obama in 2008, but with a favorite son on the ballot, Republicans hope to turn the state. The Real Clear Politics polling average for Wisconsin said Thursday that Obama was up by nearly 8 points there. In Iowa, it said the president was up by nearly 5 percentage points.

""You’re Invited to a Victory Rally with Paul Ryan and the Republican Team

Monday, October 1, 2012 Doors Open 4:30 PM | Program Begins 6:30 PM

Loras College Fieldhouse 1550 Alta Vista Street, Dubuque, IA 52001

For questions, contact us at: TeamIA@mittromney.com | (515) 758-0492

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Doors Open 7:00 AM | Program Begins 9:00 AM

Clinton County Courthouse 612 North 2nd Street, Clinton, IA 52732""

No offense to Iowans but when is this campaign going to come to Pennsylvania, either by campaign stops or TV commercials.

I know the naysayers will harp that PA is never in play, but I’m convinced it would be if the Romney campaign focused on it. Here’s why:

1. 2 statewide elections in 2010 went to the GOP
2. 5 (I think) congressional seats went GOP in 2010.
3. The coal industry is still a factor here and Obama can be hammered on energy policy.
4. also with regard to energy-Marcellus shale-make the case that a second term Obama EPA will shut fracking down
5. Strong Roman Catholic presence who are no longer enamored with Obama.

C’mon Romney-there’s enough bitter clingers in the rest of the state to overcome the Philly vote.

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