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THURSDAY — 7 p.m. Call to order Introduction of Colors US Central Command Joint Forces Color Guard Team Pledge of Allegiance by Dylan Nonaka National Anthem sung by SEVEN Invocation by Ken and Priscilla Hutchins Remarks by Republican Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla. Reagan Legacy Video Remarks by former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and wife Callista Gingrich Remarks by Craig Romney — 8 p.m. Remarks by former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla. Remarks by Bob White, chairman of Romney for President campaign Remarks by Grant Bennett Remarks by Tom Stemberg — 9 p.m. Remarks...

Excerpts released by the Romney campaign from Paul Ryan's address tonight to Republican convention in Tampa, Florida: "I accept the calling of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old – and I know that we are ready. Our nominee is sure ready. His whole life has prepared him for this moment – to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor...

[The crowd that turned out Saturday morning to hear Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan speak at the Village Green Park Amphitheatre in Powell, Ohio.]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Mitt Romney has locked himself into "extreme positions" on economic and social issues and would surely impose them if elected, trying to discredit his Republican rival at the biggest political moment of his life. In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Romney lacks serious ideas, refuses to "own up" to the responsibilities of what it takes to be president, and deals in factually dishonest arguments that could soon haunt him in face-to-face debates.

Kid Rock's presence on the campaign trail was felt long before he appeared with Mitt Romney's running mate Rep. Paul Ryan at a fundraiser on Friday. Just ask any campaign staffer or political reporter on the trail. His song "Born Free" has blasted from speakers at rallies since Romney launched his presidential bid more than a year ago, and it has been playing at Ryan events since he joined the Republican ticket.

.......On CNN, TimStanley noted the potential strength that the[Chick-fil-A]protest foreshadowed and wondered that "something more complex is taking place: Economics and culture are becoming synonymous." Might a large swath of the population believe that those two ideas are more than "becoming synonymous" -- that culture actually lays the very foundation of the economy? In the masterpiece Witness,WhittakerChambers, the inspiration for many great conservative thinkers including RonaldReagan, penned the famous quote: "Economics is not the central problem of this century. It is a relative problem that can be solved in relative ways. Faith is the central problem of this age." The...

For all the attention it got, Republican Mitt Romney's selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate has not altered the race against President Barack Obama. The campaign remains neck and neck with less than three months to go, a new AP-GfK poll shows. Overall, 47 percent of registered voters said they planned to back Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in November, while 46 percent favored Romney and Ryan. That's not much changed from a June AP-GfK survey, when the split was 47 percent for the president to 44 percent for Romney. At the same time,...

Seeks input from Texas energy executives Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney tapped oil executives for nearly $7 million on Tuesday and told them he will lay out a comprehensive energy proposal this week aimed at increasing U.S. energy production and creating jobs. On a day of fund-raising in Texas, Romney got whoops of approval from contributors in the West Texas oil town of Midland when he vowed to take advantage of "oil, gas, nuclear and renewables" if elected president on Nov. 6. Midland is where former President George W. Bush grew up, and Romney's motorcade passed a road sign...

Immigration is one of the toughest issues for the Republican Party to navigate. Getting tough on undocumented workers appeals to the party's sizable law-and-order contingent. Yet easing the borders so that workers from other countries can perform low-wage or high-tech jobs is popular with the party's business-minded members. These two sides clashed this week as more than 100 delegates met at the Marriott Waterside to draft the Republican platform, a document that sets general policy guidelines for the party as it heads into its national convention next week. Immigration is such a contentious issue that it provided one of the...

They phoned. They wrote. They rebuked him publicly from coast to coast. They cut off funding and support. Yet Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin didn’t cave. He refused to withdraw by the initial 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline, sticking with his November race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill. His choice means women’s health and abortion remain top issues, causing a debate the GOP had hoped to avoid. Akin, who says he misspoke when he said “legitimate rape” victims can prevent pregnancy, has a long voting record against abortion in any circumstance. Akin also is in line with U.S. Rep. Paul...

...Platform is clear: "Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children." ... opponents of the fundamental Human Right to Life of our youngest neighbors in the first home of the human race control much of the media. So, this heroic action by the Republican Platform Committee is reported in...

In order to defeat Barack Hussein Obama in November of 2012, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will need to garner support from as broad a base as possible, within the constraint of the fundamental moral and republican principles that lay at the root of our Republic and its constitution, upon which this Republic has thrived for well over 225 years. As this list shows, in the most important election of our life time, where the failed big government, statist policies rooted in socialism and marxism represented by Barack Hussein Obama which are not only failing us, but destroying us, are...

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Romney with 48% support to President Obama’s 47%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and two percent (2%) are undecided. In late July, it was Obama 49%, Romney 46%. This is the Republican’s largest level of support yet in the Badger State. Prior to this survey, the president has earned 45% to 52% of the vote, while Romney has picked up 41% to 46% of the vote. ... Obama beat Senator John McCain in Wisconsin in 2008 with 56% of the vote.

Congressman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee filed the civil lawsuit yesterday against Attorney General Eric Holder in the Fast and Furious case. To be clear, there are no charges that Holder had anything to do with Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's death, or the walking of guns across the U.S. border into Mexico. The charges are simply that Holder has ignored subpoenas and withheld Fast and Furious documents from Congress, and thus, is in Contempt of Congress. The documents are the starting point to actual prosecutions of criminal and civil liability in one of the worst acts of...

As Democrats attack Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for their proposals regarding Medicare, Republicans are circulating this clip from a November 9, 2009 interview we had with President Obama in which he not only acknowledged that one third of his health care bill was paid for by cuts to Medicare, but that he would veto attempts to undo those cuts. Watch the video below. The exchange on Medicare occurs at 2:15:

Election 2012: Mitt Romney's selection of the House Budget Committee chairman as his running mate focuses the 2012 choice as one between progressive chaos and capitalist growth, budgetary control and job creation. Speaking at the 2010 health care summit, Paul Ryan, after documenting the fiscal disaster of ObamaCare and exposing its budgetary "gimmicks," told President Obama, "if you think they (the American people) want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them." American voters made that point perfectly clear that November, turning control of the House to the GOP. When Romney picked the...

On Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer actually used the President's own past statements about Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to grill deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter: "President Obama said this of Paul Ryan, that he was 'absolutely sincere about wanting to reduce the deficit'...gave him 'credit for at least being willing to put out there some very tough choices.' Does he still feel that way?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Cutter attempted to rely on the usual Democratic fearmongering, accusing Ryan of a plan "that balances the budget on the backs...

There are many different ways to talk about Paul Ryan's Roadmap, but maybe the most useful is to imagine how his budget affects your budget. How much more money would you keep under his broad tax plan? How much more would you have to save to pay for health care. And for the low-income, whom -- as we'll see -- bear the brunt of Ryan's cuts: How alone would they be in Ryan's America?

Because politics touches everything in Washington, including our plates, we at Yeas & Nays have compiled a list of some of the area eateries that are trying to make this presidential election cycle tastier

Republican candidate Mitt Romney made a bold choice in picking Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to be his VP candidate. According to the New York Times, based on his Congressional voting record, Ryan is one of the most extreme VP candidates in the past century, on either side of the aisle. The standard political strategy is for the VP candidate to be closer to the center, but the Romney campaign is betting that energizing the right-wing "base" of the party will help the ticket win in November. Bold choices are also risky choices, however, and Romney-Ryan's views on how the country...