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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity." Now, it's America's forgotten war.

The Afghan conflict generates barely a whisper on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. It's not a hot topic at the office water cooler or in the halls of Congress — even though more than 80,000 American troops are still fighting here and dying at a rate of one a day.

Americans show more interest in the economy and taxes than the latest suicide bombings in a different, distant land. They're more tuned in to the political ad war playing out on television than the deadly fight still raging against the Taliban. Earlier this month, protesters at the Iowa State Fair chanted "Stop the war!" They were referring to one purportedly being waged against the middle class.

By the time voters go to the polls Nov. 6 to choose between Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the war will be in its 12th year. For most Americans, that's long enough.

Public opinion remains largely negative toward the war, with 66 percent opposed to it and just 27 percent in favor in a May AP-GfK poll. More recently, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 60 percent of registered voters felt the U.S. should no longer be involved in Afghanistan. Just 31 percent said the U.S. is doing the right thing by fighting there now.

Not since the Korean War of the early 1950s — a much shorter but more intense fight — has an armed conflict involving America's sons and daughters captured so little public attention.

"We're bored with it," said Matthew Farwell, who served in the U.S. Army for five years including 16 months in eastern Afghanistan, where he sometimes received letters from grade school students addressed to the brave Marines in Iraq — the wrong war.

"We all laugh about how no one really cares," he said. "All the 'support the troops' stuff is bumper sticker deep."

Farwell, 29, who is now studying at the University of Virginia, said the war is rarely a topic of conversation on campus — and he isn't surprised that it's not discussed much on the campaign trail.

"No one understands how to extricate ourselves from the mess we have made there," he said. "So from a purely political point of view, I wouldn't be talking about it if I were Barack Obama or Mitt Romney either."

Ignoring the Afghan war, though, doesn't make it go away.

More than 1,950 Americans have died in Afghanistan and thousands more have been wounded since President George W. Bush launched attacks on Oct. 7, 2001 to rout al-Qaida after it used Afghanistan to train recruits and plot the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

The war drags on even though al-Qaida has been largely driven out of Afghanistan and its charismatic leader Osama bin Laden is dead — slain in a U.S. raid on his Pakistani hideout last year.

Strangely, Afghanistan never seemed to grab the same degree of public and media attention as the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed as a "war of choice."

Unlike Iraq, victory in Afghanistan seemed to come quickly. Kabul fell within weeks of the U.S. invasion in October 2001. The hardline Taliban regime was toppled with few U.S. casualties.

But the Bush administration's shift toward war with Iraq left the Western powers without enough resources on the ground, so by 2006 the Taliban had regrouped into a serious military threat.

Candidate Obama promised to refocus America's resources on Afghanistan. But by the time President Obama sent 33,000 more troops to Afghanistan in December 2009, years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan had drained Western resources and sapped resolve to build a viable Afghan state.

And over time, his administration has grown weary of trying to tackle Afghanistan's seemingly intractable problems of poverty and corruption. The American people have grown weary too.

While most Americans are sympathetic to the plight of the Afghan people, they have become deeply skeptical of President Hamid Karzai's willingness to tackle corruption and political patronage and the coalition's chances of "budging a medieval society" into the modern world, says Ann Marlowe, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, a policy research organization in Washington.

"With millions of veterans home and talking with their families and friends ... some knowledge of just how hard this is has percolated down," said Marlowe, who has traveled to Afghanistan many times.

It has also been hard to show progress on the battlefield.

World War II had its Normandy, Vietnam its Tet Offensive and Iraq its Battle of Fallujah. Afghanistan is a grinding slough in villages and remote valleys where success if measured in increments.

The Afghan war transformed into a series of small, often vicious and intense fights scattered across a country almost as large as Texas.

In July, 40 U.S. service members died in Afghanistan in the deadliest month for American troops so far this year. At least 31 have been killed this month — seven when a helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in what was one of the deadliest air disasters of the war. Ten others were gunned down in attacks from members of the Afghan security forces — either disgruntled turncoats or Taliban infiltrators.

Many argue that bin Laden's death justifies a quick U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Others say it's important to stay longer to shore up the Afghan security forces and help build the government so that it can stand on its own. An unstable Afghanistan could again offer sanctuary to militants like al-Qaida who want to harm American and its allies, they say.

"Those of us who have been at this for a long time continue to think that it's important, and that we have a chance now of a path forward with a long-term perspective that will produce the results," said James Cunningham, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition's combat mission will wind down in the next few years, leading up to the end of 2014 when most international troops will have left or moved into support roles.

Military analysts say the U.S. envisions a post-2014 force of perhaps 20,000 to hunt terrorists, train the Afghan forces and keep an eye on neighboring Iran and other regional powerhouse nations.

Americans aren't likely to know the number until later this year. But will anyone other than families of service personnel take note?

"I have heard others say that the danger that their spouses or children are serving in is just simply not being cared about," said Fred Wellman, a 22-year Army veteran who did three tours in Iraq. "I think a lot of veterans feel it is just forgotten."

Political satirist Garry Trudeau captured the apathy about the war in a comic strip this year showing a U.S. servicewoman stationed in Afghanistan calling her brother back home.

After he complains that his children have the flu and how he's struggling to keep up with their hectic hockey schedule, he asks her where she's calling from. She tells him she's in Afghanistan.

"Oh, right, right ..." her brother replies. "Wait, we're still there?"

Associated Press Writers Kristin Hall in Nashville, Tennessee and Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.

ROSEAU, Dominica (AP) — Leaders across much of the Caribbean closed schools and government offices on Wednesday and urged people to stay at home as Tropical Storm Isaac swept toward the region, threatening to soon become a hurricane and perhaps eventually to menace Florida.

The storm was 140 miles (230 kilometers) east of the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe late Wednesday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph). Isaac was moving west at 21 mph (33 kph) and was expected to become a hurricane by Thursday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

In Dominica, one of the first islands in the storm's path, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit urged people to stay home from work on Wednesday.

"I want us all to be safe," he said. "I don't want lives to be lost. I have listened to the advice of the experts and so I am asking all to stay indoors."

In Puerto Rico, Gov. Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard. He also canceled classes and closed government agencies on Wednesday. The U.S. Coast Guard ordered all commercial vessels bigger than 200 gross tons to leave the port or obtain permission to remain in port.

The Liat airline said it expected to cancel flights to and from Dominica by Wednesday afternoon, and American Eagle has already canceled all its flights, according to Benoit Bardouille, CEO of the island's Air & Seaport Authority. The fast ferry that runs to Guadeloupe and Martinique also will temporarily suspend service, he said.

Disaster Coordinator Don Corriette warned of landslides and asked people in low-lying areas to seek shelter if needed.

The storm's center was expected to move over the Leeward Islands on Wednesday evening, and forecasters said it is expected to hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba as a hurricane later in the week.

Isaac also poses a possible threat to Florida during next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect for Puerto Rico, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and a swath of islands across the Caribbean including Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe, St. Martin, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, Anguilla, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Culebra and Vieques.

A hurricane watch is in effect for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and the south coast of the Dominican Republic.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Mitt Romney's Republican National Convention sputters to life Monday with the lonely banging of a gavel in a mostly empty hall, then hits full speed on Tuesday, just as forecasters say Tropical Storm Isaac could reach hurricane strength and make landfall somewhere between Mississippi and New Orleans.

"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," Romney said as he prepared to rehearse his convention speech at a New Hampshire high school auditorium. He suggested there were no thoughts of canceling the gathering.

Romney said he hopes those in the storm's path are "spared any major destruction." Looking ahead, the former Massachusetts governor signaled that he and his wife Ann are close to finalizing their speeches.

Tom Del Beccaro, a California delegate and chair of the state GOP, predicted the one-day delay would supercharge the rest of the convention.

"I think there's going to be a lot of bottled up energy, and I think that's going to show," he said.

But Sally Bradshaw, a Florida Republican and longtime senior aide to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was not so sanguine. "It's a mess all around and it's fraught with risk," she said. "It's not good for anybody — particularly the people impacted by the storm."

It was hardly the opening splash that convention planners had hoped for, and risked the juxtaposition of Republicans partying as the storm batters toward the gulf — almost exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

"Obviously we want to pray for anyone that's in the pathway of this storm," Party Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday on NBC's "Today" show, "but the message is still the same: that all Americans deserve a better future and that this president ... didn't keep the promises he made in 2008."

The party hastily rewrote the convention script to present the extravaganza's prime rituals and headline speakers later in the week, and further changes were possible. Convention planners said Monday's speakers would be worked into the schedule later in the week.

"We're going to continue with our Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday schedule," said Russ Schriefer, the chief convention planner.

As the threat of the storm to Tampa diminished, delegates focused on party message and the near-term task of making Romney the nominee and working to defeat Obama in November.

"There's a mission here," said Gary Harkins, a delegate from Brandon, Miss. "We have to nominate a candidate for president. Our mission is to save America from becoming a socialistic state."

Sen. Rob Portman delivered a message to the Ohio delegation that was echoed at meetings and news conferences all across Tampa — the Obama presidency has been a failure.

"It's time to stop blaming others and take responsibility," Portman said at a breakfast session. "There are families all over Ohio that are suffering as a result. He hasn't measured up to his own standards. "

The weather was a constant concern for some. Jeanne Luckey of Ocean Springs, Miss., whose family lost a beachside home to Hurricane Katrina, said friends were helping secure their inland home for Isaac.

"It's a very busy time, certainly, but we've got to take care of the business of the party and make sure we get Governor Romney nominated," Luckey said. "We have a lot of work to do between now and November."

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan decided to head to Florida on Tuesday, a day later than expected. He was in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., on Monday putting final touches on his convention speech and addressing students at his former high school. Signs at the school proclaimed him "The pride of Janesville."

The storm was a complication, at best, for a party determined to cast the close election as a referendum on Obama's economic stewardship and Romney as the best hope for jobs and prosperity.

The concern was two-fold: that Tampa, hosting thousands of GOP delegates, would get sideswiped by the storm; and that it would be unseemly to engage in days of political celebration if Isaac made a destructive landfall anywhere on U.S. soil.

"You can tone down the happy-days-are-here-again a bit," said Rich Galen, a veteran Republican consultant in Washington. "Maybe you don't have the biggest balloon drop in history."

In Washington, aides said Obama was being updated at the White House on the storm. He was still planning his two-day campaign trip to Iowa, Colorado and Virginia, beginning Tuesday morning.

In a boost to Obama's convention next week, Florida's former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist was added as a speaker. Crist had announced on Sunday that he was endorsing Obama, saying he was the correct choice and criticizing his former party for its move to the right.

For all the weather concerns, a mix of partly sunny skies, fast-moving clouds and occasional rain covered Tampa at midmorning Monday as the outer bands of the tropical storm delivered unsettled conditions.

Traffic was light as streets around the arena were blocked off and security patrolled the area.

Under the reworked convention schedule, organizers planned a pro forma opening Monday afternoon to last just 10 minutes. Priebus was to gavel the convention to order, then immediately recess. Few delegates were expected to attend. In the only bit of convention-hall theater, a debt clock was to be set in motion, to tally the nation's red ink during the convention.

Speakers who had been scheduled for Monday were to start making the case against Obama, under the day's theme, "we can do better." That theme now will be threaded through the following three days, Schriefer said. "Even though the days will be abbreviated, I absolutely believe we'll be able to get our message out."

The roll call of state delegations affirming Romney as the party's nominee now is to unfold Tuesday, an evening capped by speeches from Ann Romney and an assortment of GOP governors. Ryan gets the prime-time spotlight Wednesday, and Romney closes out the spectacle Thursday night, his springboard into the final leg of the contest. That's all if the storm brings no further complications.

So far, many taking the shakeup in stride. "People are pretty resilient, and people knew going in that there were some weather issues," said Pat Shortridge, the Minnesota state GOP chairman, from Lino Lakes, Minn. "I don't think it's dampened enthusiasm."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, scheduled to speak on Wednesday, said he wouldn't leave Louisiana "as long as we're in harm's way."

Weather was recognized as potential trouble when Republicans chose to hold their convention in politically vital Florida during hurricane season, a decision made well before Romney locked up the nomination. And it's clear that memories of Hurricane Katrina, and the failure of a Republican administration to respond effectively to its Gulf Coast devastation in 2005, are hanging over Tampa now. Republicans have been so sensitive to the political risks from natural disasters that they delayed the start of their national convention by a day in 2008, when Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf, far from their meeting in Minnesota.

Polls find a tight race, and it's one that is likely to be settled in a small number of battleground states.

An estimated $500 million has been spent on television commercials so far by the two candidates, their parties and supporting outside groups, nearly all of it in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. Those states account for 100 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to win the White House. Republicans hope to expand the electoral map to include Pennsylvania, Michigan, perhaps Ryan's Wisconsin and even Minnesota, states with 68 electoral votes combined.

All four are usually reliably Democratic in presidential campaigns. Yet Romney has a financial advantage over the president, according to the most recent fundraising reports, and a move by the Republicans into any of them could force Obama to dip into his own campaign treasury in regions he has considered relatively safe.

Republican office-holders past and present said the economy is the key if Romney is to expand his appeal to women and Hispanic voters.

"We have to point out that the unemployment rate among young women is now 16 percent, that the unemployment rate among Hispanics is very high, that jobs and the economy are more important, perhaps, than maybe other issues," said Arizona Sen. John McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008.

The Romney campaign released a Spanish-language radio ad with son Craig's testimonial to his father.

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New Hampshire; Thomas Beaumont, Tamara Lush and Brendan Farrington in Florida; Philip Elliott in Wisconsin; and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Republicans eagerly looked to showcase Mitt Romney as a man who understands everyday Americans and a leader who can fix the economy, with GOP National Convention speeches Tuesday by the woman who knows him best and tough-talking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

But with New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast waiting fearfully to see where a massive storm makes landfall, politics became an awkward enterprise and no one knows what sort of party the GOP gathering will turn out to be.

After a one-day weather delay, the convention proceeds according to its latest script: delivering Romney the presidential nomination he fought years to achieve, calling the party to unify around him and setting the stage for the final stretch of the hotly contested campaign to unseat President Barack Obama.

Christie, who delivers Tuesday's keynote address, said that for those Americans who aren't yet sold on Romney, "you start turning it around tonight."

In a round of morning talk-show appearances, Christie said Ann Romney would humanize her husband for the nation, and that his own speech would make the case for GOP economic policies and Romney as the fixer. But ultimately, Christie said, it will up to Romney himself "to let the American people see who he is."

Meeting with Michigan delegates, Christie insisted that an effective president trumps likeability.

"We need somebody who cares more about getting the job done than they care about being temporarily popular with any particular segment of our country," Christie said.

Christie has his own fan club.

"I just love him," said Sandy Barber, a delegate from rural northwest Ohio. "He's plain-talking. He's himself. He's someone who lets his personality come through."

Romney, Barber allowed, "is a different kind of personality. His personality exudes leadership."

Eager to counter Romney's economic pitch to middle-class voters, a super PAC supporting Obama unveiled an ad featuring a small business owner who criticized the candidate's record on job growth as Massachusetts governor.

The Romneys boarded a plane bound for Tampa, but it was a mystery whether the GOP candidate would attend the convention before his big address Thursday night. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his family, too, headed for Florida. Ryan delivers his speech Wednesday night.

Already in Tampa: a slew of GOP presidential also-rans: Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain posed for a photo after running into each other at the convention center, Cain joking that the caption could be: "We ain't mad. We support Mitt and Ryan." Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were on hand too, both with speaking slots.

The high campaign season opens with Romney and Obama about even in the last of the pre-convention polls, with each candidate possessing distinct and important advantages. The Democrat is the more likable or empathetic leader; the Republican is more highly regarded as the candidate who can restore the economy, the top issue for voters.

Ann Romney's convention speech was designed to speak to that divide. It was an important part of the GOP's effort to flesh out her husband and present him to the nation as more than a successful businessman and the former Republican governor of a Democratic state, Massachusetts.

She went about the business of humanizing the Romney family with a taped appearance on "CBS This Morning" in which she talked about the pain of a miscarriage, telling details about the experience that were news even to her husband. The Romneys have five sons.

Isaac, the intensifying tropical storm bordering on a hurricane, skirted Tampa, a big relief for convention organizers worried about the safety of the host city and GOP delegates. But they remain saddled with the question of how to proceed with a political festival — one devoted both to scoring points against Obama and firing up excitement for Romney — under the shadow of a dangerous storm crawling toward the Gulf Coast.

Tampa awoke to sunny skies Tuesday while convention planners monitored weather reports for the storm's impact on the Gulf Coast some seven years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region.

In a reminder of both the storm and the presidency, Obama warned residents of the Gulf Coast to heed warnings from local officials and follow their directions as the storm approached. He delivered brief remarks from the White House.

Organizers essentially cut Monday from the schedule, calling the convention to order just long enough to recess it, and shoehorned their four-day showcase into the remaining three days. But even that was subject to change, depending on Isaac's whims.

Republicans plainly had more at stake in their convention week — Democrats meet next week in Charlotte, N.C. — but the Obama campaign also had to recalibrate its tactics as Gulf residents fled their homes or hunkered down. Vice President Joe Biden was called off a Romney-bashing trip to Florida.

That's not to say partisanship has subsided with Isaac's gathering strength. Hardly.

Obama headed to Iowa on Tuesday as the first stop on a campaign trip in which he will make a personal appeal to college voters in three university towns: Ames, Iowa; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Charlottesville, Va.

Awaiting the president in Iowa: An article in the Des Moines Register in which 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole called Romney and Ryan a "dream ticket."

The two "have a program to turn the economy around that is the most thoughtful and comprehensive I have seen in my lifetime, and I have seen a lot," wrote the 89-year-old Dole.

On Twitter Monday night, Obama circulated a quotation from Women's Health Magazine suggesting that Republicans would take away women's right to contraception, which the Romney campaign denies. "Crazy as it sounds, the fight to limit or even ban birth control is a key issue in the upcoming presidential election," it said.

In a sign of just how stage-managed these conventions have become, the never-dull Christie did something he rarely does before a speech — wrote down a full text — as he prepared to deliver the keynote address Tuesday night. "They want you to work off a full text and that's fine," he told MSNBC. "I think my challenge up there is gonna be to be natural and be myself."

An AP-GfK poll of registered voters conducted from Aug. 16-20 found Obama leading Romney 50 percent to 44 percent among women. That represented a narrowing of the gap by Romney since a survey in May, when the president led 54-39 among female voters.

Romney trailed badly among another key group. A Gallup poll taken between July 30 and Aug. 1 found Obama winning 60 percent support among Hispanic voters, and the Republican at 27 percent, little different from 64-29 earlier in the year.

Among seniors, the group most affected by a Medicare debate that has become central to the campaign, Romney led Obama by a margin of 52 percent to 42 percent in the recent AP-GfK poll. That was compared with 53-40 in May.

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Brian Bakst, Thomas Beaumont, Tamara Lush, Brendan Farrington and Julie Mazziotta in Florida; Steve Peoples in New Hampshire; Philip Elliott in Wisconsin and Steven Ohlemacher, Alicia A. Caldwell and Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — With the Republican National Convention at last in full-throated roar, nominee Mitt Romney and his team reached out Wednesday to connect with critical voting groups — veterans, Hispanics and women — while gleefully mocking the man he is out to defeat in November.

Romney himself was ducking out of his own convention in Tampa to address the American Legion Convention in Indianapolis. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a top Hispanic voice in the GOP, made the round of morning talk shows to defend the GOP nominee's policies. And Ann Romney and Janna Ryan, the wife of Romney's running mate, teamed up to headline a "Women for Romney" event.

His nomination now official, Romney was free at last to start dipping into his general-election pot of campaign cash.

"We're excited that now he's going to be able to spend money, both in English and in Spanish, to explain to people how his policies will help grow the economy, help small business, help people have the confidence to invest in the future," Rubio said on "CBS This Morning."

To ensure the cash keeps rolling in, Ann Romney emailed supporters a fundraising appeal that echoed her Tuesday night speech to the convention.

"This man will not fail," she promised in the plea.

The main draw Wednesday night is vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, the 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman and author of a tough budget that remakes the way the government spends money. A poll by the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post found Americans deeply divided about Ryan, whom they described as conservative, intelligent, fake, phony.

President Barack Obama, for his part, was courting another key voting group — young voters — with a second day of campaigning in college towns. He had hoped to speak on the University of Virginia campus, but the school rejected that idea, saying it would disrupt classes on the second day of the semester. He'll speak in an off-campus pavilion instead.

The politics played out as Hurricane Isaac blew ashore on the Gulf Coast, casting uncertainty into a convention that scrubbed the first day of events out of fear it would swipe Tampa. Any scenes of destruction along the Gulf Coast were sure to temper the celebratory tone, and further compression of the schedule was possible if the storm proved disastrous.

The latest economic news suggested weak growth in the second half of the year, fodder for Republicans who blame Obama for the sluggish recovery. The U.S. economy grew at a tepid 1.7 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the government reported Wednesday, a bit better than expected due to slightly stronger consumer spending and greater exports.

The GOP's outreach effort went into full gear after Ann Romney offered convention delegates — and a national TV audience — a soft-sided portrayal of the Republican candidate in her convention address. Her appearance was paired with a parade of gleeful Obama-bashers as the GOP seized its moment after days of worry about the hurricane.

Beyond Ryan, Wednesday's lineup includes 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Romney speaks Thursday night to bring down the curtain-closing balloons. Obama's Democratic National Convention follows next week in Charlotte, N.C.

Rubio held out Ryan as a "serious policy thinker" who's "going to have a bunch of new fans across this country" after he speaks.

The Obama campaign, in turn, released an online video targeting Ryan as a politician from a "bygone era" whose views threaten Medicare and would gut funding for Planned Parenthood.

Rice, warming up for her speech, said the voice of the United States in world affairs "has been muted" under this president, creating a chaotic and dangerous security environment. She spoke on "CBS This Morning."

Opinion polls, however, show Obama getting high marks on national security after ending the war in Iraq, drawing down the conflict in Afghanistan and ordering the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

The convention's keynote speaker, the unpredictable New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, issued a broad indictment of Democrats on Tuesday as "disciples of yesterday's politics" who "whistle a happy tune" while taking the country off a fiscal cliff.

"It's time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real leaders to the White House," he said. "Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good-paying, private-sector jobs again in America."

Romney made his debut at the convention two days before his own speech, rousing the crowd into cheers as he took the stage briefly to share a kiss with his wife after she spoke. Ann Romney's prime-time speech was in large measure an outreach to female voters as she declared her husband "will not let us down" if elected president.

Her tone was intimate as she spoke about the struggles of working families: "If you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it? It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right."

Obama's allies did their best to counter Romney and the Republicans.

In her own effort to woo female voters, first lady Michelle Obama traveled to New York to promote her healthy-living initiatives while visiting "The Dr. Oz Show" and Rachael Ray's talk show. The programs will air next month, closer to the election.

Mrs. Obama also was making a guest appearance on Wednesday's "Late Show with David Letterman."

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, dismissing GOP attempts to woo Hispanic voters, said: "You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate." He added, "This is a party with a platform that calls for the self-deportation of 11 million people."

Hispanics strongly favor Obama, according to public polls, and Romney and his party have been seeking to win a bigger share of their votes by emphasizing proposals to fix the economy rather than ease their positions on immigration.

Polls find the economy is overwhelmingly the dominant issue in the race and voters narrowly favor Romney to handle it. In an AP-GfK poll taken Aug. 16-20, some 48 percent of registered voters said they trust Romney more on economic issues, to 44 percent for Obama. However, a Washington Post-ABC News in the days immediately before the convention found that 61 percent of registered voters said Obama was more likable, while 27 percent said Romney.

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Brian Bakst, Thomas Beaumont, Tamara Lush, Brendan Farrington, Julie Mazziotta, Steve Peoples, Kasie Hunt and Philip Elliott in Florida, Frazier Moore in New York, Julie Pace in Colorado and Stephen Ohlemacher and Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Democrats open their national convention Tuesday offering President Barack Obama as America's best chance to revive the ragged U.S. economy and asking voters to be patient with incomplete results so far. Michelle Obama, in her opening-night speech, aims to give people a very personal reminder of "the man that he was before he was president."

"The truth is that he has grown so much, but in terms of his core character and value, that has not been changed at all," Mrs. Obama said in interview airing on SiriusXM's "The Joe Madison Show."

The three-day convention has drawn thousands of delegates to a state Obama narrowly carried in 2008. And although Obama no longer is the fresh-faced newbie who leveraged a short Senate career into an audacious run for the nation's highest office, he still can excite partisans, and Democrats were counting on massive numbers to pack a stadium for his speech later in the week.

The Democrats dispatched U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who hopes to unseat Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, to make the case for Obama on morning talk shows, and she acknowledged that "it's tough out there" for many Americans. But she insisted that Obama offers the better vision going forward.

"Republicans are not helping us get back," she said.

Warren was up against GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman, who held out the millions of people who are struggling to find work as an indictment of the president's first term.

"Four years into a presidency and it's incomplete?" he asked in a round of morning television interviews. "The president is asking people just to be patient with him?"

GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign reinforced that message with a new Web video answering Obama's statement that "there are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery." The new video showcases a series of ordinary people who've lost their jobs saying, "I'm an American, not a bump in the road."

Romney, his convention behind him, planned to spend the day in Vermont preparing for the fall debates with Obama.

If the economy is Obama's burden, he demonstrated the power of the presidency with a convention-eve visit to hurricane-stricken lands in Louisiana, offering aid and empathy. The president emphasized the government's determination to lend a strong helping hand. Romney, for his part, focused on neighbor helping neighbor in his visit days earlier, though both support a mix of emergency aid from the taxpayer and volunteerism in response to natural disasters.

On convention eve, Democrats released a party platform for ratification Tuesday that echoes Obama's call for higher taxes on the wealthy and reflects his shift on gay marriage by supporting it explicitly.

In a nod to dissenters on gay marriage, the platform expresses support for "the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference."

As with the deeply conservative Republican platform, not all of which Romney endorses, nothing binds Obama to the specifics of the party's manifesto.

The president rallies in Virginia on Tuesday before joining the convention a day later.

Michelle Obama said she wants to use her opening speech to "remind people about the values that drive my husband to do what he has done and what he is going to do for the next four years. I am going to take folks back to the man he was before he was president."

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro delivers the convention's keynote address Tuesday, a nod to the importance of Hispanic voters in the race.

"Under any score — immigration, education, health care — in any number of issues, he has been a very effective advocate for the Latino community," Castro said of Obama during an interview on CNN.

With flourishes but no suspense, Democrats will march through the roll call of states renominating Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president on Wednesday.

That's also when the convention hears from Bill Clinton, whose 1990s presidency is being trumpeted by Democrats as the last great period of economic growth and balanced budgets — a further redemption of sorts, at least from his party, for a leader who survived impeachment over sexual scandal.

Obama's big acceptance speech is Thursday, and Democrats were closely monitoring the weather forecast. Officials had to decide by Tuesday whether to proceed with plans to hold the final night of the convention in an outdoor stadium or move it to a smaller indoor arena. Heavy evening rains doused Charlotte over the Labor Day weekend. Thursday's forecast calls for a chance of rain.

In a USA Today interview, Obama accused Republicans of building their campaign around a "fictional Barack Obama" by wholly misrepresenting his positions and words. He singled out Romney's claim, widely debunked, that the Obama administration stripped a work requirement out of federal welfare laws.

The Republican convention last week heard testimonials from a colleague of Romney at Bain Capital and from the founder of Staples, the office supply chain that grew from the private-equity firm's investments. Democrats, focused on enterprises that closed or moved overseas after Romney's firm got involved, are giving speaking time to workers from Bain-controlled companies who will tell the other side of the story.

Obama came out with a campaign commercial asserting that, under Romney, "a middle-class family will pay an average of up to $2,000 more a year in taxes, while at the same time giving multimillionaires like himself a $250,000 tax cut." Aides said it would be seen in Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, the battleground states where the White House race is likely to be decided.

The president and aides have acknowledged for weeks that they and the groups supporting them are likely to be outspent by Romney, and recent figures say that has been the case in television advertising in the battleground states for much of the past two months.

Democrats chose North Carolina for their convention to demonstrate their determination to contest it in the fall campaign. Obama carried North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008, but faces a tough challenge this time given statewide unemployment of 9.6 percent, higher than the vexing national rate of 8.3 percent.

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Ben Feller in LaPlace, La., Philip Elliott in Detroit, Kasie Hunt in Wolfeboro, N.H., and Michael Biesecker, Mitch Weiss and Beth Fouhy in North Carolina contributed to this report.

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.

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. .