Sources: Romney to pick Ryan

NORFOLK, Va. — NORFOLK, Va. Entering a critical point in his election campaign, Mitt Romney is set to announce Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate today, according to sources in the Romney camp.

Citing several insiders in the Romney campaign and a senior Republican with knowledge of the decision, the Associated Press and NBC News reported late Friday that the presumptive GOP presidential candidate would unveil Ryan as his running mate during a campaign event in Virginia this morning. Romney's campaign would officially say only that he would announce his pick today.

Romney and Ryan are expected to make their first appearance together in Norfolk, Va., at the start of a four-state bus tour to introduce the newly minted GOP ticket to the nation.

With polls indicating Romney losing ground to President Barack Obama, the move to add Ryan to the GOP ticket is likely to appease conservatives who have been publicly fretting that Romney has lost the summer.

Ryan, 42, a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Budget Committee, is viewed by some in the Republican Party as a bridge between the buttoned-up GOP establishment and the riled-up "tea party" movement that has never warmed to Romney.

In recent days, conservative pundits have been urging Romney to choose Ryan in large part because of his authorship of a House-backed budget plan that seeks to curb overall entitlement spending and changes Medicaid into a voucherlike system to save costs.

On Thursday, Romney fueled the buzz around Ryan, telling NBC that he wants a vice president with "a vision for the country, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country."

Ryan on the ticket could help Romney become more competitive in Wisconsin, a state Obama won four years ago but that could be much tighter this November.

Under pressure to alter the course of his campaign, the announcement of a running mate is the first of several opportunities for Romney to make a move to recapture momentum over the next three weeks. At the end of the month, Republicans will gather in Tampa for a four-day convention that will provide the former Massachusetts governor a chance to reintroduce himself to the country and reset the race on his terms.

Romney's effort gets under way today in Virginia, when he begins a four-day bus tour through four critical swing states in as many days: North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Ohio. All are battlegrounds where Obama won in 2008. Romney will be accompanied by his wife, Ann, and his new running mate.

By showing the candidate connecting with blue-collar America, the tour is designed to help Romney shed the caricature that the Obama campaign has tried to draw of him as an elitist who looks out only for the wealthiest. Romney plans to tour the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk and to swing by a bakery in Ashland, Va., today. He will stage a rally Sunday at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C., near Charlotte.

Aboard his campaign plane Friday, Romney told reporters: "Bus tour, it's great! It's great to be out campaigning. ? Campaigning is the most fun, is the most enjoyable and rewarding." Romney then clapped his hands and returned to his seat at the front of the plane. "Back to my yogurt," he said.

Romney's focus on the middle class will carry into the convention at the end of this month. The national spotlight will shine brighter in Tampa than at any other moment in Romney's campaign, and his supporters are betting that many voters will form their impressions of him then.

"To borrow a phrase, the convention has the potential to be an 'Etch A Sketch moment,'" said Mark McKinnon, a longtime Republican image-maker who advised the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain. "Conventions often wipe the slate clean. A crucial bloc of undecided voters, though there aren't many this year, will just start paying attention when the convention starts."

Romney's advisers are putting finishing touches on plans to reintroduce the candidate to the nation. They have filmed new videos with Romney and his family at his lakefront vacation home in Wolfeboro, N.H., and are devising a prominent role onstage for Ann Romney and their extended family.

"Americans are going to get a real close look at Governor Romney, his wife, Ann, and the entire family," senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters Friday. "I think that they're going to be impressed by the fact that this is a family that shares their values. He shares their values of hard work, of patriotism, of sacrificing so that the next generation has it better than the current one."

For Romney, a big moment couldn't come soon enough. Weeks of pummeling by Democratic ads depicting Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat and possible tax evader appear to have taken a toll.

Three national polls released over the past two days have Obama widening his lead over Romney to as much as 9 points. The surveys of registered voters, all conducted from Aug. 2 to Aug. 8, also have Romney's unfavorable ratings rising. Two of the polls indicate his support among independents is slipping.

A Fox News poll indicated the largest deficit, with Romney trailing by 9 points -- 49 percent to 40 percent -- the widest gap Fox has reported.

A senior Romney adviser played down the new polls at a news briefing Friday morning at Boston headquarters, saying they must be midsummer flukes because there had been no "precipitating event" to move the numbers so much.

The adviser pointed to the latest Gallup polls, which have the two candidates in a dead heat, as well as to Rasmussen, an automated poll that usually leans Republican and has Romney ahead of Obama.

The Romney campaign is predicting a post-convention "bounce," noting in a presentation to reporters that presidential challengers on average jump 11 points in polling after their party conventions.

"People are not paying as much attention to this process as we all think they are," the adviser said. "Let's get to the conventions, Labor Day, the debates -- that's when people will really be paying attention."

Republican strategists unaffiliated with the Romney campaign agreed.

"When people start to pay attention at the convention time, they can put their bullets in their gun and fire away," said David Carney, a veteran strategist who ran Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign. "Yes, there's pressure. You never want to be behind. But ultimately, what happened in the summer is much less relevant than what happens in the fall."

The developments of the past few weeks have ratcheted up the pressure for Romney and his campaign to execute their strategy and avoid the kind of missteps and distractions that marred his summer.

Romney is emerging from a rocky foreign trip and criticism that his responses to Obama's onslaught of attack ads were too weak. And he has not quieted questions about his personal finances, because of his refusal to release more than two years of federal income-tax returns.

On Friday, a prominent supporter, Utah businessman Jon Huntsman Sr., joined a chorus of Republicans calling on Romney to disclose more tax filings.

Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this article.

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