Romney to announce vice-presidential nominee on Saturday

By Philip Rucker, Updated: Friday, August 10, 9:10 PMThe Washington Post

BOSTON — Mitt Romney will make the long-awaited announcement of his running mate on Saturday, at the start of a critical stretch in which the presumptive Republican nominee hopes to regain ground he has lost to President Obama in polls.

With some conservatives fretting publicly that he has lost the summer, Romney is under pressure to alter the course of his campaign. He will have several chances to do so over the next three weeks, starting with the announcement of a vice-presidential nominee on Saturday morning. 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 in Virginia, where he begins a four-day bus tour through swing states on Saturday with his wife, Ann. His campaign announced late Friday that he will reveal his running mate at 8:45 a.m., when he tours the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk.

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. In addition to touring the USS Wisconsin, Romney plans to swing by a bakery in Ashland, Va. on Saturday. He will stage a rally Sunday at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C., near Charlotte.

Aboard his campaign plane Friday evening, 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 the 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 here 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.”

Romney to announce running mate on Saturday; signs point to Paul Ryan - The Washington Post