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Colorado House candidate attacked by former Democratic supporters

Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 21 Oktober 2012 | 17.56

Money from wealthy Democratic activists Tim Gill and Pat Stryker helped sweep Kathleen Curry into office in 2004, but these days the Gunnison rancher is accusing them of funding false attacks against her.

Curry is once again running for the state House but this time as an unaffiliated candidate who has the potential to take votes away from the Democrat in the race, Rep. Millie Hamner of Dillon.

"My voting record is a good record," Curry said. "They must be worried."

Curry said the liberal political group running the attacks against her broke Colorado law by knowingly publishing false information in order to affect the outcome of an election. Mailers and a radio ad accuse her of sponsoring a bill that sides with

insurance companies to deny coverage for mammograms.

"The bill did not do what they are claiming," she said. "In fact, I am on record supporting mammogram coverage."

House District 61 crosses three judicial districts, so she filed a complaint with three district attorneys who have agreed to have one office handle the investigation. Curry met Friday with a DA investigator in Montrose.

Also on the ballot are Republican Debra Irvine of Breckenridge and David Petrowsky with the American Constitution Party.

House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, blistered Democrats for going after a candidate they worked so hard to elect just eight years ago.

"It's the Democrats' win-at-all costs leadership program," he said Friday.

But House Minority Leader, Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said both sides are employing "tough tactics" to win the majority on Nov. 6. Republicans hold only a 33-32 edge in the House.

"Frank's one to talk," Ferrandino said, pointing to attack mailers from conservative groups.

Ferrandino also noted that the attacks against Curry are not from House Democrats, but an outside group, the Colorado Accountable Government Alliance. The group has raised more than $2 million from a variety of sources, including unions and Gill and Stryker. The registered agent, Julie Wells, did not return calls. Gill and Stryker have not responded to previous attempts to ask them about the alliance.

Gill and Stryker were among the four Democrats who were instrumental in financing the Democratic takeover of the state House and Senate in 2004, the first time Republicans weren't in control of both chambers since 1962.

Curry got the plumb post of chair of the House ag committee, but lost that after she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to unaffiliated before the 2010 session. Because of election laws at the time, she was unable to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate and had to wage a write-in campaign, which she lost. Republicans that year won back the majority by one seat.

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327, lbartels@denverpost.com or twitter.com/lynn_bartels

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Man fatally wounded in incident involving Larimer County deputy

A man was killed late Friday night after he exchanged shots with a Larimer County deputy, authorities say.

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a news release by Kathy Messick, sheriff's spokeswoman.

The suspect's former girlfriend called 911 at 10:50 p.m. for help after her ex-boyfriend showed up at her home on the 100 block of Guardian Peak Drive in Glacier View, a neighborhood northwest of Fort Collins, Messick said.

She told a dispatcher she believed he had overdosed and needed medical attention.

But while deputies were still driving to the caller's home, the woman called back and said her ex-boyfriend had left her home and was armed with a gun, Messick said.

When the deputies arrived the suspect pointed his gun at them.

One shot was fired by the man and one by a deputy, according to the sheriff's office. How the man died is not clear and will be determined by the Larimer County Coroner's Office, officials said.The suspect and one of the deputies fired their guns.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kmitchelldp

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Two teens in Littleton shot in street, one dies

An 18-year-old man was killed and a 17-year-old boy was rushed to a hospital with at least one gunshot wound late Friday night, authorities say.

The 17-year-old boy's condition was not known. He was taken to Swedish Medical Center, according to a news release by Kelli Narde, Littleton police spokeswoman.

The 18-year-old man was pronounced dead in the 5400 block of South Fox Street, where police found his body after an 11:11 p.m. emergency call.

The identities of the two victims have not been released.

Police, who were one block away, received a "shots fired" call and found the victims shortly afterward, according to Narde.

Detectives were processing the crime scene and interviewing witnesses.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, facebook.com/kmitchelldp or twitter.com/kmitchelldp

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Investigators in Jessica Ridgeway murder case look beyond open space

Late last week, for the first time since 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway disappeared on her way to school, no ground crews combed the acres of open space around her home or other sites hunting for evidence.

Authorities have been reluctant to say whether they uncovered any clues that might point to Jessica's killer during the three large-area searches conducted since she disappeared.

But one thing that is certain: Massive, open spaces with their high brush, hilly terrain and exposure to the elements are among the most challenging crime scenes law enforcement can confront.

And in an environment where evidence can be as subtle as a patch of strangely bent grass, collection becomes a race against time, experts say.

Wednesday, wind gusts up to 38 miles per hour whipped through the last active search site where part of Jessica's body was recovered. By Thursday, the large ground searches had stopped as police continued the investigation on other fronts, said Westminster Police Department Investigator Trevor Materasso.

"Short of new information, we don't have plans to do more of the open-space searches," Materasso said. "Westminster has never had a case that would require such an extensive search in terms of geography or personnel."

Jessica left her Westminster home for school the morning of Oct. 5 but never made it. By the next day, hundreds of civilian volunteers searched the park and open spaces south of her Westminster home and near Standley Lake.

Two days later, authorities discovered her backpack in a Superior subdivision, opening a second search area. And Oct. 11, part of Jessica's body was discovered near Pattridge Park Open Space in Arvada.

Based on search-area boundaries provided by Materasso, an estimated 24 square miles have been searched, with varying levels of scrutiny, by more than 200 officers from more than 40 agencies. Search dogs and remote-controlled helicopters with video and infrared technology aided the investigation.

In an abundance of caution, anything searchers came across was documented and collected like evidence, which is part of the reason high winds that re-littered the search sites became so problematic.

By Thursday afternoon, the trash collecting in the corners of windbreak fences throughout Pattridge Park, east of a landfill, was nearly knee high.

"The environmental conditions are definitely a consideration into where, when and how searches are conducted," Materasso said. "The amount of wind was a factor."

Even before the wind kicked up, evidence recovery would have been made more complicated and labor-intensive by the sites' sizes, uneven terrain and tall ground cover, said Tom Griffin, who recently retired as a Colorado Bureau of Investigation crime-scene investigator after 27 years.

One of the first steps in wide-area searches is for investigators to use what they know of the crime and the route that the killer may have taken to narrow the search area.

"The smaller an area, the easier to keep focused. A broken window, a door that's smashed in — you're pretty limited. You're only going to go a few feet left or right of that point of access," said Griffin, now a consultant. "At an outdoor scene, you're not going to know where that is. A footpath may be a place to start, but in reality, you know you're going to have to spread out."

Evidence can be anything from scraps of fabric or blood trails to things as subtle as a patch of grass that's bent in an unusual way, possibly with a footprint or tire track hiding underneath.

Searchers often walk or crawl side by side at arm's length in lines, grids or some other pattern chosen to least disturb the site, he said.

"It's the needle-in-the-haystack analogy," Griffin said. "You may not even know what you're looking for."

In searches like those conducted in Jessica's case, investigators work against the clock.

Transitory evidence, such as hair and paper, can be picked up by the wind or by nesting animals.

And certain types of DNA — traces deposited on the skin or other smooth surfaces, for example — are more easily deteriorated by exposure to heat and moisture.

"Is it in full sun? Partial shade? What are the temperatures? What's the pH? Is there bacterial action where the evidence might be located?" said Iris Dalley, a retired Oklahoma state investigator who now consults with Griffin for Bevel, Gardner and Associates. "If it's exposed to the environment, you might be degrading your profile."

She also noted that some traditional methods for recovering human remains — such as infrared scanners that pick up heat generated by decomposition — may not work when the victim is a small child.

Authorities have not said whether they've recovered all of Jessica's remains.

Materasso said that without the help of outside law enforcement agencies and other volunteers, a search this size would not have been possible.

Like the April and May search for the body of infant Torrey Brown in a Commerce City landfill or the 2007 search in Denver for toddler Neveah Gallegos' body, cases like Jessica's often bring an outpouring of community support.

The day after she disappeared, more then 800 regular citizens withstood icy weather to look for signs of the little girl in the open spaces around her home.

But as police gathered more information, they needed more skilled searchers, Materasso said.

For the first time, Westminster called on the trained volunteers of the Front Range's search-and-rescue teams, who more typically search for lost hikers and climbers.

More than 100 volunteers over three days used their dog teams, climbing skills and some light rappelling to scan areas not easily reached by walking, said Colorado Search and Rescue Board spokesman Howard Paul.

"Most search-and-rescue teams do this type of search every once in a while. They're unusual but not unheard of," Paul said. "When we're looking for someone in the mountains, we're dealing with someone able to respond or signal to us versus a piece of evidence — and we don't even know what it is. We worked at a much slower, much more focused and intense pace."

Alpine Rescue Team volunteer Becky Brock, an engineer by day, spent two days doing the concentrated type of searches needed to recover evidence in Jessica's case.

She said she's glad to be able to help, either in her normal recovery duties or as a small part of police investigations like this one, she said.

"For me, every time, it doesn't matter what the outcome is. It's nice to be able to help someone or help someone's family have that closure," Brock said.

Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244, jfender@denverpost.com or twitter.com/oh_fender

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Colorado marijuana-legalization amendment spending tops $3 million

The campaigns fighting for and against a measure to make legal limited possession and retail sales of marijuana have collectively raised and spent more than $3 million so far this election season, according to an analysis of campaign-finance reports.

Fundraising by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which backs Amendment 64, dwarfs that of Smart Colorado, the main group opposed, by a nearly 4-1 margin. Both sides report receiving more financial support from outside the state than from inside it.

Taking into account other groups working for and against the measure, total campaign fundraising on the amendment this season is close to $3.7 million.

Through the middle of this month, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol had raised more than $1.3 million in monetary contributions. The campaign also benefited from another $39,000 in in-kind contributions and a $400,000 loan. The loan, as well as $830,000 in monetary contributions, came from the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, a drug-reform organization that is active in marijuana-legalization and -liberalization efforts across the country.

The campaign's biggest individual donor is San Francisco-based Internet entrepreneur Scott Banister, according to the reports, which show that Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps have also written large donations.

The campaign has spent $1.6 million.

Meanwhile, Smart Colorado has reported raising $433,000 in monetary contributions. Its largest donor is the Florida-based organization Save Our Society From Drugs, which has given $210,000. The campaign has also received large donations from Visit Denver, Trice Jewelers, the Focus on the Family-connected group CitizenLink and Cherry Hills Village mining and steakhouse boss Steve Mooney.

Smart Colorado has reported spending $215,000.

Though the campaigns received more contributions, numerically, from inside Colorado than from outside it, both campaigns have gotten more money from out-of-state sources.

About 51 percent of Smart Colorado's money comes from outside Colorado, according to a Denver Post analysis. Roughly 89 percent of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol's money is from out of state.

Roger Sherman, Smart Colorado's campaign director, criticized his opponents' out-of-state support.

"They are hijacking our state's Western heritage of direct citizen access to the ballot in an attempt to further their agenda and pushing it with Hollywood celebrities," he said.

Mason Tvert, one of the leaders of the pro-Amendment 64 campaign, said the amendment — along with others in Washington state and Oregon — has spurred a nationwide discussion about marijuana policy, a scope that is reflected in the donations.

"Ultimately, the voters of Colorado are going to decide on this initiative," he said.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold

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U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman duplicated others' words in Post, DBJ op-eds

Written By Bersemangat on Sabtu, 20 Oktober 2012 | 17.56

A pair of columns published by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora within the past year contain passages of previously published work by other House members but did not attribute the source of the information or writing.

The op-ed columns on different subjects were published beneath Coffman's byline in The Denver Post and the Denver Business Journal.

The Post op-ed contains

unattributed material from a budget proposal crafted by Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, while the Business Journal op-ed contains material earlier published by U.S. Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri.

Ethics experts contacted by The Post said the duplicative writings fall short of their definition of plagiarism. But they said Coffman's use of material by other writers failed to reach accepted standards for attribution.

Coffman is engaged in one of the most contentious congressional races in Colorado. The Post made its discovery of the duplicative writing when a Democratic operative associated with the campaign of Coffman's rival, state Rep. Joe Miklosi, provided documents and alleged plagiarism to a reporter and the news organization's editorial page.

Those documents were delivered to The Post on Monday — the day ballots were mailed to voters and a week before early voting begins.

After reviewing the documents, editorial-page editor Curtis Hubbard changed practices for future contributors

meant to ensure that submissions are original work.

"There has always been an unspoken understanding that items submitted to the opinion pages are the original work of the author and that proper credit is given to other sources when it is due," Hubbard said. "We have now spelled out that policy in writing and posted it to our website so there will be no question as to our guidelines moving forward."

Coffman on Friday called the plagiarism allegations "absurd."

"My staff are in constant collaboration with various committees, and a major role of committee staff is to help members create content," Coffman said.

The Post's editorial board operates separately from the newsroom, which conducted a review of the op-eds in question, along with recent op-eds published by Colorado's current congressional delegation.

Staff for Coffman's campaign said that in the unpaid Post op-ed April 15, House Budget Committee analyst Matt Hoffmann inserted an explanation that laid out the Republican majority's plan to reform Medicare as part of its fiscal 2013 budget proposal.

Coffman's campaign provided documents showing how the op-ed column was altered — at Coffman's request — by Hoffmann, who inserted verbatim language from Ryan's "Paths to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal," published almost a month earlier.

Coffman said he didn't know that the material came directly from the budget plan. Requests to Hoffmann seeking comment have not been returned.

Coffman's campaign provided documents that detailed the collaboration that led to publication of the Business Journal op-ed Aug. 24.

In that instance, a Republican staffer for the House Committee on Small Business wrote an op-ed about the impact should the so-called "fiscal cliff" of tax increases next year transpire.

The staffer e-mailed Coffman's staff, saying, "We've written for you to use as you wish."

The Small Business Committee staffer also gave similar — but not exactly the same — material to other Republicans, including Graves, the committee's chairman.

Coffman's campaign said that collaboration with partisan staffers was common practice in Washington. And the campaign provided two instances in which significant portions of text were repeated in two pairs of op-eds published by Republican congressmen since 2009.

Coffman's campaign also provided a copy of a Post op-ed by Denver U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat, that contained similar material to another source in a piece published earlier on the Rocky Mountain PBS website. DeGette's duplicative wording amounted to three copied phrases — not full sentences or paragraphs.

Independently, The Post found one instance in which sentences in a Post op-ed written by DeGette later appeared in a press release by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute observed the Coffman documents and said these kinds of events can occur when a politician or public official makes use of a ghostwriter.

"Responsible practice requires transparency: making it clear who wrote what," Clark said in an e-mail.

Teresa Fishman, director of the International Center for Academic Integrity, said given the purpose and context of an op-ed, the original authors could easily have been noted.

"In my opinion putting forth text written by someone else as his own in an op-ed runs contrary to the legitimate expectations for an op-ed, i.e. that the content was produced by the person to whom it is attributed," Fishman said via e-mail.

Staff researcher Vickie Makings contributed to this report.

Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655, klee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kurtisalee

Shared writing

A Denver Post op-ed by Rep. Mike Coffman uses the following language from Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget plan.

Identical content shown in italics.

From Rep. Coffman's April 15 Denver Post op-ed:

"The second-least expensive approved plan or the traditional fee-for-service Medicare, whichever is least expensive, would establish the benchmark that determines the premium-support amount.

" If a senior chose a costlier plan than the benchmark plan, he would be responsible for paying the difference between the premium subsidy and the monthly premium. Conversely, if that senior chose a plan that cost less than the benchmark, he would be given a rebate for the difference. Payments to plans would be risk-adjusted and geographically rated. Private health plans would be required to cover at least the actuarial equivalent of the benefit package provided by traditional fee-for-service Medicare."

From "The Path to Prosperity:"

"The second-least expensive approved plan or fee-for-service Medicare, whichever is least expensive, would establish the benchmark that determines the premium-support amount for the plan chosen by the senior.

If a senior chose a costlier plan than the benchmark plan, he or she would be responsible for paying the difference

Between the premium subsidy and the monthly premium. Conversely, if that senior chose a plan that cost less than

The benchmark, he or she would be given a rebate for the difference. Payments to plans would be risk-adjusted and

Geographically rated. Private health plans would be required to cover at least the actuarial equivalent of the benefit

package provided by fee-for-service Medicare."

Note: In preceding paragraphs of Coffman's op-ed, he references GOP House-passed fiscal year 2013 budget proposal.

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Furniture industry optimistic after taking hard hits in the recession

HIGH POINT, n.C. — This year may be a turning point for the furniture industry, which has taken an especially hard hit during the recession as credit was limited and people put big-ticket purchases on hold to pay monthly bills.

That's the growing sentiment for about 75,000 industry insiders who this week crowded into High Point for the world's largest furniture trade show in a city built by furnishings. The past couple of months have seen a collection of government and private data pointing to what seems to be a brightening U.S. economy. Inflation is low. Homebuilder confidence is at its highest level in six years, and retail shoppers are spending more.

Most important for furniture sales, more Americans are buying and moving into homes that they'll look to furnish, pushing up sales and prices after a six-year slide.

Buyers stocking furniture stores for the coming months seemed more willing to place orders at the High Point Furniture Market, which ended Thursday, even if it's too soon to celebrate the recovery of the two-thirds of economic activity that depends on consumers.

Nearly 90 percent of those attending the market were U.S.-based.

"The last four or five years, it was pretty doom and gloom. I'm seeing more optimistic people this time around," said Braden Richter, formerly a furniture-manufacturing executive and now chief executive of e-commerce retailer LuxeYard Inc. "I'm seeing a lot of fresh product. When times get tough, people keep reshowing the same thing because it costs money to do R&D. It looks like the factories have definitely spent money on R&D, so they must feel good about it too."

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Unemployment rates show slight drop in most battleground states

CLEVELAND — Unemployment rates fell last month in nearly all of the battleground states that will determine the presidential winner, giving President Barack Obama fresh fodder to argue that voters should stick with him in an election focused squarely on the economy.

The declines, however, were modest. It's unknown whether they will do much to sway undecided voters who are considering whether to back Republican Mitt Romney or give the Democratic president four more years.

The statewide data released Friday by the Labor Department provide one of the last comprehensive looks at the health of the U.S. economy ahead of Election Day, now a little more than two weeks away. Voters will get one more update on the national unemployment rate just days before the election.

But the state reports matter greatly to the Obama and Romney campaigns, which believe the public's impressions of the economy are shaped mostly by local, rather than national, conditions.

In Ohio, perhaps the most crucial battleground state for both Obama and Romney, the unemployment rate ticked down last month to 7 percent from 7.2 percent, below the national average of 7.8 percent.

"I knew a lot of people who were laid off, and now they're working," said firefighter Matt Sparling, an Obama supporter from Parma Heights, Ohio. "So something good is happening here."

Obama's team is banking on the president getting credit for improvements in Ohio's economy, particularly for the bailout of the auto industry, which has deep roots in the Midwestern swing state. But Romney has opportunities to run on the economy in Ohio, too. The state lost nearly 13,000 jobs in September, and the drop in the unemployment rate was probably attributable in part to people dropping out of the job market.

Obama's campaign released a new ad in Ohio on Friday, touting the president's rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Without the auto bailout, one man in the ad says, "Ohio would have collapsed." Another man says, "Mitt Romney would have just let us go under — just let them go bankrupt." The ad's tag line shows the map of Ohio with the words: "Mitt Romney. Not one of us."

The president didn't mention the state jobless numbers during a campaign stop Friday in Virginia, one of two battleground states where the rate didn't drop. Virginia's rate held steady at the relatively low level of 5.9 percent.

Romney was headlining a rally in Florida on Friday evening after spending much of the day in New York meeting with advisers.

The candidates were stepping off the campaign trail this weekend for debate preparations ahead of Monday's third and final faceoff in Boca Raton, Fla. Romney was staying in South Florida to practice, while Obama and top aides headed to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, to prepare for the foreign-policy-focused debate.

International issues competed with the economy for voters' attention Friday, as fresh questions arose over what the White House knew when about the deadly attack on Americans in Libya.

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan accused Obama of stonewalling, telling Milwaukee radio station WTMJ that the president was refusing to answer even basic questions.

"His response has been inconsistent. It's been misleading," Ryan said.

Romney and Ryan have criticized the administration for saying at first that the attack was a spontaneous mob reaction to an anti-Muslim video on YouTube when they now acknowledge it was a terrorist attack. U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of the attack to say there was evidence it was carried out by militants, although it's unclear who received that information right away.

Despite increased focus on Libya, the economy remains the No. 1 election issue for most voters. Friday's jobs report showed the unemployment rate falling slightly in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Nevada's 11.8 percent rate is the highest nationally. Iowa has the lowest battleground state rate, with 5.2 percent out of work.

Obama has staked his re-election prospects on the notion that the economic crisis he inherited is easing. He's been backed by positive trends for a handful of recent economic indicators, as well as polls showing the public's view of the economy is improving.

But millions of Americans are still out of work, giving Romney an opportunity to cast the president as ineffective in solving the country's economic troubles. Romney, too, has plenty of economic data to back up his argument, including disappointing earnings reports Friday from major companies, including Microsoft and McDonald's.

Both campaigns say the last round of data released ahead of Election Day is unlikely to sway voters who have been living the reality of the economic downturn and weak recovery for more than four years.

John Patterson, 25, a recent college graduate from North Carolina, said he doesn't have to look at unemployment numbers to know things aren't good in his home state. He's sent out résumés and had a few interviews but is still unemployed.

Patterson voted for Obama four years ago but says he's not sure he'll do the same this time around.

"Things haven't really changed, have they?" he asked. "I mean, too many people are still out of work."

CLEVELAND —Unemployment rates fell last month in nearly all of the battleground states that will determine the presidential winner, giving President Barack Obama fresh fodder to argue that voters should stick with him in an election focused squarely on the economy.

But the state reports matter greatly to the Obama and Romney campaigns, which believe the public's impressions of the economy are shaped mostly by local conditions rather than national ones.

In Ohio, perhaps the most crucial battleground state for both Obama and Romney, the unemployment rate ticked down last month to 7 percent from 7.2 percent, below the national average of 7.8 percent.

"I knew a lot of people who were laid off and now they're working," said firefighter Matt Sparling, an Obama supporter from Parma Heights, Ohio. "So something good is happening here."

Obama's team is banking on the president getting credit for improvements in Ohio's economy, particularly for the bailout of the auto industry, which has deep roots in the Midwestern swing state. But Romney has opportunities to run on the economy in Ohio, too. The state actually lost nearly 13,000 jobs in September and the drop in the unemployment rate was probably due in part to people dropping out of the job market.

Obama's campaign released a new ad in Ohio on Friday, touting the president's rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Without the auto bailout, one man in the ad says, "Ohio would have collapsed." Another man says, "Mitt Romney would have just let us go under — just let them go bankrupt." The ad's tagline shows the map of Ohio with the words: "Mitt Romney. Not one of us."

Romney was headlining a rally in Florida Friday evening after spending much of the day in New York meeting with advisers.

The candidates were stepping off the campaign trail this weekend for debate preparations ahead of Monday's third and final face-off in Boca Raton, Fla. Romney was staying in South Florida to practice, while Obama and top aides headed to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, to prepare for the foreign policy-focused debate.

International issues competed with the economy for voters' attention Friday, as fresh questions arose over what the White House knew when about the deadly attack on Americans in Libya.

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan accused Obama of stonewalling, telling Milwaukee radio station WTMJ that the president was refusing to answer even basic questions.

"His response has been inconsistent. It's been misleading," Ryan said.

Despite increased focus on Libya, the economy remains the No. 1 election issue for most voters.

Friday's jobs report showed the unemployment rate falling slightly in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Nevada's 11.8 percent rate is the highest nationally. Iowa has the lowest battleground state rate, with 5.2 percent out of work.

John Patterson, 25, a recent college graduate from North Carolina, said he doesn't have to look at unemployment numbers to know things aren't good in his home state. He's sent out resumes and had a few interviews but is still unemployed.

Patterson voted for Obama four years ago, but says he's not sure he'll do the same this time around.