North Carolina is battleground territory in this year's presidential election. And so both parties are sending in the political heavyweights.
Asma Khalid: Yesterday was election day in Wisconsin, Paul Ryan's home state. And it was a big election - Wisconites were voting on whether to oust their current governor. But, Ryan wasn't in Wisconsin. Instead, he was in Raleigh, campaigning for Mitt Romney. It's a huge sign of just how important North Carolina will be this November. Ryan is known as the architect of the GOP budget a budget that Mitt Romney recently endorsed. And, so what better campaign tactic than to host an economic roundtable.
Paul Ryan: You know if we stick with the status quo, we're going to have a European like debt crisis.
Ryan spoke to a group of small business owners over biscuits at Big Ed's City Market.
Paul Ryan: And so we really think we're on the cusp of doing something great in this country,and getting us back on growth, if we can get this thing turned around. You know North Carolina, Wisconsin, and about 10 other states, we got to produce.
Dennis Berwyn is a small business owner in Raleigh. And he likes what he heard.
Dennis Berwyn: Representative Ryan, he gets it. He really does. He understands how the economy works, and he knows that it's not government stimulus that solves problems. It's individual business owners.
But, the North Carolina Democratic Party disagrees with Ryan. A few blocks away, they held a press conference to retaliate. Wake County Democratic Chair Dan Blue III says GOP economic ideas are blast from the past.
Dan Blue III: Wake County and North Carolina know better than that. We know that the answer to our problems, the direction we need to take in the future is not to tread those same policies that brought us to the worst recession since the Great Depression.
The debate continues today when Vice President Joe Biden visits Winston Salem to tout President Obama's record on job creation.
