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ADEL, Iowa (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan heaped praise on Bill Clinton Wednesday, holding him up as a model of reform and Barack Obama as his opposite just hours before the former president's speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Campaigning in Iowa, Ryan lauded Clinton administration action on welfare reform and spending reductions — areas where the GOP ticket has aimed some of its sharpest critiques of Obama, the incumbent Democrat.

Clinton, once an Obama critic, has become one of his biggest assets as the president scraps with GOP nominee Mitt Romney for re-election. Clinton, whose two terms ended on an economic high note, appears in a television ad where he likens Obama's agenda to his own.

Void of a single reference to Clinton-era scandals, Ryan's praise was a way to paint Obama as a failure on the GOP ticket's terms.

"Under President Clinton we got welfare reform," Ryan told an audience outside a small-town courthouse west of Des Moines. "President Obama is rolling back welfare reform. President Clinton worked with Republicans in Congress to have a budget agreement to cut spending. President Obama, a gusher of new spending."

Ryan, a House member from Wisconsin, also said a Clinton administration commission to study the future of Medicare inspired the GOP ticket's proposal to offer seniors a choice of traditional Medicare or a fixed government payment that could be used to buy private coverage.

"It's an idea that came out of the Clinton commission to save Medicare," Ryan said.

Ryan reminded the audience of supporters that the national debt surpassed $16 trillion this week on the first day of the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C.

"That's a country in decline," Ryan said.

Among Ryan's criticisms was an indirect reference to the GOP ticket's debunked claim that Obama has waived the work requirement on Clinton-era welfare reform.

Ryan also neglected to mention that the Clinton action he praised came after Democrats lost control of the House and Senate in 1994, having raised taxes in 1993 and tried unsuccessfully to enact a national health care program the following year.

The balanced budget agreement Clinton made with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, created the first new benefit program in years, a health insurance program for low-income children not eligible for Medicaid.

And Ryan made no mention of the scandals that marked the Clinton administration. Most notably the GOP-controlled House approved four articles of impeachment in 1998, though the Senate voted against removing Clinton from office.

Ryan was elected in 1998, but the impeachment votes took place before Ryan assumed his seat.

By treading lightly on the former president, Romney's team also is making a play for Clinton supporters who are disappointed by Obama.

Romney's campaign has stepped up its effort to appeal to working-class white voters in pivotal states such as Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia.

White voters without college degrees preferred Clinton's wife, Hillary, over Obama in states such as Ohio during the 2008 Democratic presidential nominating campaign. They now prefer Romney over Obama by more than 20 percentage points, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll published last month.

Clinton's prime time speaking slot at the convention, like his central role in the Obama ad airing in key states, is seen as an effort to narrow Romney's advantage with these voters, who could tip the balance in a close election.

"Bill Clinton has very favorable approval numbers," said Katon Dawson, a national political consultant and former South Carolina Republican Party chairman. "He's a pretty tough adversary for us."

AP reporter David Espo contributed from Charlotte, N.C.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The Democratic Party's platform makes no reference to God, drawing criticism from Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

Ryan tells Fox News' "Fox & Friends" the change is not in keeping with the country's founding documents and principles and suggests the Obama administration is behind the decision. The Republican platform mentions God 12 times.

The 2008 Democratic Party platform made a single reference to God, referring to the "God-given potential" of working people.

The new platform does contain a plank on faith, saying it "has always been a central part of the American story." The platform says the nation was founded on the principle of religious freedom and the ability of people to worship as they please. It also praises the work of faith-based organizations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is reshaping his message from an all-economic pitch to an all-out challenge to what he argues is a failed status quo, taking a risk with barely 50 days to go in the campaign.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie will have an elevated role in shaping the campaign message for the GOP nominee and will focus it more tightly on a broader change-versus-status-quo strategy.

"The timing is right at this moment to reinforce the specifics, more specifics about the Romney plan for a stronger middle class," Gillespie told reporters during a conference call Monday.

The point, Romney aides said, is that if voters find all aspects of the status quo, including economic and foreign policy, acceptable, they should vote to re-elect President Barack Obama. But if they are fed up with what Romney argues is failure across the board by Obama, they will turn to Romney.

With the campaign momentum currently on Obama's side, Romney sought Monday to explain to voters more clearly what he would do as president, as he looked to right his struggling campaign and ease worries in Republican circles about its state seven weeks before Election Day.

As the outward strategy changes, the Romney campaign also has launched a quiet outreach effort designed to stem dissention among the Washington Republicans who have been more and more vocal in their criticism of the nominee's campaign.

Key Romney aides have been tasked with leading the effort, which also includes discussions with Washington consultants tied to outside groups that have poured tens of millions of dollars into the presidential contest so far. Those groups, which are keenly aware of the perceived problems inside Romney's camp, are weighing how to balance limited resources between the presidential campaign and congressional races in the coming weeks.

Romney was using his own campaign dollars to launch new television ads highlighting his plans as he prepared to address a Hispanic business group in Los Angeles.

"My plan is to help the middle class," the Republican nominee says in a new TV ad in which he promises to cut the deficit, balance the budget, reduce spending and help small business. "We'll add 12 million new jobs in four years."

It was one of two new commercials he was launching in the most competitive states — the other assails Obama as bad for middle-class families — while also re-focusing his campaign appearances on his previously released five-point economic plan and starting a new effort to try to narrow Obama's advantage with Hispanic voters.

In addition, Romney was preparing to make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country and he's spending a significant amount of time preparing for next months' series of debates, mindful that the face-to-face meetings may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.

The emphasis on Romney's plans for the future comes after a week in which Republican veterans of presidential campaigns publicly implored the GOP nominee to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern, saying that simply castigating Obama wouldn't be enough to win. The new effort also follows a series of polls that show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at Romney's Boston-based campaign.

With griping in GOP circles mounting, Romney and his advisers spent the weekend in Boston hashing out a plan to try to shift the dynamics of the race before the first debate on Oct. 3.

After a turbulent week that saw Romney stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East, Romney chose to try to return to his comfort zone — the economy — and his argument that only he can solve stubbornly high unemployment given his decades of work in the private sector.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, was to emphasize that pitch this week in appearances while also zeroing in on the debt and deficit.

Romney, for his part, was starting the week with a speech Monday to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, as he looks to narrow Obama's advantage with these Democratic-leaning voters in key battleground states.

The campaign also was working to counter the notion of a campaign in disarray after a Sunday story on the Politico website detailed infighting among Romney's senior staffers. Campaign advisers worked to downplay those tensions and insisted the campaign is still on track.

"Obama's entire foreign policy is in flames. The economy is terrible. Let's get a little distance from the convention," top strategist Stuart Stevens wrote in an email Sunday morning, seeking to counter the notion of a campaign in a downward spiral.

It's been a tough few weeks for Romney.

Trouble began with Clint Eastwood's rambling conversation with a chair on the final night of the Republican convention, right before Romney's keynote address omitted the war in Afghanistan or a thanks to the troops serving there.

The intervening weeks have been scattered. Romney ducked battleground states as he hunkered down in Vermont for debate preparation, then spent days defending his decision to omit war from the speech. Polls showed the Democratic convention gave Obama a boost.

Then violence erupted in Egypt and Libya, prompting Romney to issue a statement criticizing the Obama administration before it was known that an American ambassador had died in Libya. Romney doubled down on his criticism in a news conference the next day.

That drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike.

Romney's team sought last week to try to shift the tide by working harder and spending more on TV. The campaign released a flight of ads for different states during the week of the Democratic convention, but later replaced almost all of them with the same ad attacking Obama's record on China.

That was just last week. The new pair of ads were rolled out Monday.

Romney's campaign is spending more money on the ads now that they have access to funds raised for the general election. Over the summer, Romney also benefited from vast sums spent by independent groups on his behalf. Through last week, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS spent a combined $107.5 million on presidential election television advertising. That's $20 million more than Romney's campaign over the same time period, according to spending figures obtained by The Associated Press. Romney has also benefited from $46.5 million in television spending by Americans For Prosperity.

The Crossroads groups and Americans For Prosperity have long planned to balance their spending between the presidential contest and House and Senate races. Romney aides fear that the outside spending may now shift disproportionately toward the congressional races.

"We've always planned to spend substantially more on presidential level advocacy, but also spending significantly on House and Senate races," said Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for American Crossroads.

Thomas reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Washington and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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Follow Kasie Hunt on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kasie and Ken Thomas at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — If the presidential election were held today, Romney and Obama would be more or less tied, the latest polls show. But on one voter test, Obama has a clear advantage:

Who would you rather have a beer with?

Or, if you don't drink (as Romney doesn't), who would you rather have a glass of lemonade with? Or take with you on a road trip (with or without your dog)? Or invite over for dinner?

Simply put, there is a likability gap.

This may seem trivial compared to questions like, say, which candidate you think will better revive the economy or safeguard the nation's nuclear weapons. But election after election has demonstrated that how voters feel about their candidate matters. A lot. It buoyed Ronald Reagan and helped sink John Kerry.

Likability has become a political buzzword that stands for something deeper. More like affinity. Empathy. How well does he or she connect? How much does he understand people like me?

There are Republicans who think this will be the deciding issue for Mitt Romney. He has about as good a playing field as a challenger could hope for, yet has not broken past the president. The election, they believe, may well turn on whether Romney can use this week's convention and the fall debates to really connect with voters in a way he has not yet been able to.

Democrats see this as Obama's core asset. Even in these hard times, voters feel he gets their plight better than the rich guy does. Asked which candidate better understands the problems of people like you, Obama beats Romney among registered voters 51 to 36 percent in the latest AP/GfK poll. Some 53 percent of adults hold a "favorable" opinion of the president, compared with just 44 percent who view Romney favorably.

And that is a president who isn't actually all that touchy-feely himself, having at times been compared to the "Star Trek" alien Mr. Spock, who suppressed emotion in order to solve problems. In fact, Obama's personal ratings are lower than most presidential candidates in recent elections, notes polltaker Andrew Kohut. They are just better than Romney's.

That is Romney's challenge.

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CAN HE persuade voters to feel comfortable enough with him to turn out Obama? Not just to agree with him on issues but to trust him with their futures? That is why likability is about a lot more than having a beer.

It is about addressing what The Economist, a business-oriented British newsmagazine, editorialized as their "main doubt" about Romney: "Nobody knows who this strange man really is."

One striking element of this long campaign is how little Romney did over years of campaigning to really introduce himself, apparently not wanting to distract from discussion of the weak economy.

But Romney and his campaign were on course to use this convention to "warm up" his image. The candidate and his wife, Ann, sat down with Fox News at their home in New Hampshire the other day.

The correspondent, Chris Wallace, shared their pancakes as Ann described how Mitt had ironed his own shirt just that morning. "I noticed he was doing the laundry last night," she disclosed.

For his part, Romney did what he could to address the issue: "Remember that Popeye line, 'I am what I am and that's all what I am.'" What voters really want, he says, is effective management of the economy and for that he is your man.

In another interview, published by Politico on Monday, Romney acknowledged his likability problem but blamed it on the waves of attack ads Obama and his allies have launched against him (although his personal ratings were low even before the barrage).

He tried to turn the issue around on Obama, calling him a nice guy but a failed president.

In other words, American public, you liked Obama as a candidate but are disappointed in him as a president, while I, Romney, may be disappointing as your candidate but will deliver as your president.

Jon Stewart scoffed when George W. Bush (at that point a teetotaler) was described as a guy you'd love to have a beer with. I don't want a president I can have a beer with, Stewart said, "I want my president to be the designated driver." Given the highway pileup the American economy has just been through, Stewart's quip isn't all that far from Romney's campaign argument.

But can likability or affinity be separated from issues and effectiveness? That is becoming one of the principal questions of this campaign.

The question is sometimes posed as if managing the economy, on which Romney scores better, is different from the personal qualities that Obama scores better on. Some Republicans argue that Obama's personal ratings are all that keep him afloat amid the economic wreckage.

But that misses the point, says one Democratic consultant. Those personal qualities may actually be a way some voters connect politics to their economic facts of life.

"If you are part of the working class and you believe that the deck has been stacked against people like you for a decade or so," this consultant said, "who is likely to be the more 'desirable' remedy for that — the financial CEO who 'understands' the economy or the guy you think is fighting for people like you?"

Which is why fighting for you is an Obama campaign mantra.

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IN TRYING to overcome this, Romney is banging into a pretty deep vein of American political feeling. Ever since Andrew Jackson let his supporters traipse mud through the White House, there has been a resistance to letting the patricians back in power.

It took a huge economic crisis for Americans to elect the Hudson valley gentryman, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Herbert Hoover in fact was a good man, just a failed president, which is exactly what Romney is trying to say about Obama.

Romney's team has been planning to use the convention to highlight Obama's failure, as they see it, without denying the president's likability — and their own candidate's competence, as they see it, while acknowledging the need to humanize him.

This highlights the risk they have taken by waiting until so late in the campaign to try to personalize the candidate. Because Hurricane Isaac has intervened, in more ways than one.

On the obvious level, it has disrupted and overshadowed the convention so far. It has created a conversation about the last Republican administration's handling of a natural disaster when Romney would like to talk about the present Democratic administration's handling of the economy.

But as if to confirm that he is what he is (to channel Popeye again), the hurricane has created the kind of test for Romney that campaigns so often throw at candidates, a sudden change of terrain when the campaign was in the middle of doing something else.

These moments can be opportunities. What better chance to project empathy and connection than a looming threat to life and property? And Romney, Ann at his side, seemed to start out that way. The couple's thoughts, he said, were with the people in the storm's path, and he expressed hope that "they're spared any major destruction."

A more empathic politician might have left it at that, as his running mate, Paul Ryan, did. But Romney kept going, effusive about the convention and how it would go on despite the storm.

"I like my speech. I really like Ann's speech," he said. "Our sons are already in Tampa, and they say it's terrific there — a lot of great friends. And we're looking forward to a great convention."

Which, if his ear for connecting with people is as tin as it seems to be there, might be somewhat less likely than he hopes.

EDITOR'S NOTE — Michael Oreskes is senior managing editor for U.S. news at The Associated Press. Reach him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .