COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The marching band is all ready on its familiar perch inside Ohio State's college basketball arena, but the scoreboard is now plastered with bright blue Obama-Biden signs -- and the stands feature red, white, and blue bunting as President Obama finally launches his campaign for real.

"This is where the campaign starts right here, it's the kickoff for 2012," excited 28-year-old Travis Jones said.

"And hopefully it ends here too with Obama staying in office."

Aides say the president will have a new stump speech entitled "Moving America Forward" with familiar themes about the middle class sprinkled with a few new applause lines. Organizers say the Value City Arena has a seating capacity of 17,700 to 20,000, while about 30,000 supporters have RSVP'd for the event, though it's unclear how many will show up.

First Lady Michelle Obama joins the president for some rare joint appearances as they launch the first two official public rallies of the campaign here at Ohio State and later in the day at Virginia Commonwealth University with an eye on trying to revive the enthusiasm of young people on college campuses that helped carry him to a historic victory in 2008.

"The most important thing is getting youth involved," said Jones. "Everything that's happening right now is going to affect us." (read more)

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., may not want to talk about becoming the GOP vice presidential nominee, but he is certainly campaigning like one -- tagging along with Mitt Romney on the campaign trail and taunting President Obama.

He said Monday that if Obama focuses on his current record as president, "he is going to lose and he knows that."

"They don't want it to be about his record. They're going to want it to be about everything else," Rubio said on Fox News' "Hannity" Monday night. 

Asked about becoming a possible vice presidential candidate, Rubio clammed up saying he did not want to talk about it because he was trying "to be respectful of their process."

Earlier Monday, Rubio campaigned for Romney in Aston, Pa., by taking questions from the press at a town hall meeting. Romney said he was "delighted" to be joined with Rubio on the campaign trail. In return, Rubio said Romney is going to help America "reclaim and recapture the things that make this nation of ours different from all other countries on the earth."

During the town hall meeting, Rubio also continued to criticize Obama arguing that he is trying to tell "Americans that the reason why they're hurting is that other people are doing too well. That the way they can climb the ladder is to pull other people down. If we do that, we become like every other country in the world." (read more)

Fox News has learned that Mitt Romney will address the Republican National Committee meeting of State Party Chairmen this Friday in Phoenix, stake his claim to the GOP presidential nomination and call upon party leaders to unite.

The meeting will be attended by more than 40 of the RNC’s 50 state GOP chairmen, along with 200 additional GOP officials, activists and political professionals as they gear up for the fall campaign to oust President Obama.

Though Romney has had a major fundraiser planned for Friday in Phoenix for some time, his appearance at the RNC meeting was only finalized on Monday.

Romney is expected to assume the role of titular head of the GOP as the all-but-certain presidential nominee.

Romney will give his marching orders to the state GOP chairmen and spur them to the shared cause of retaking the White House.

State Party Chairmen are crucial links to each states’ grass roots -- Romney’s success or failure depends greatly on their help.

Also in Phoenix, the RNC plans to propose reforms to this years’ primary process by defining “proportional allocation" of delegates for 2016.

It’s a big deal -- there was no such definition for 2012, and states allocated delegates in varied and confusing ways. (read more)

When Sen. Rick Santorum announced he was suspending his campaign Tuesday he spoke about his family and ailing daughter Bella but on Thursday he said in the end it came down to the money.

"After Wisconsin it was very, very difficult to raise money but one of the reasons for that was the media narrative that the race is over," said Santorum in an interview with Fox News Host, Greta Van Susteren. He explained the media was fixated on the impossibility of his candidacy and when he was going to get out of the race, making it difficult to convince donors to keep opening up their wallets.

However, Santorum doesn't want to play the blame game with the media and takes responsibility for not effectively conveying his campaign's message. "I don't blame the media," Santorum told Van Susteren. "If we didn't do a good enough job in communicating our message, you can't rely on the media to do that for you. It'd be nice if they would but you can't and so you've got to go out and just figure out ways to effectively communicate that message." (read more)

Social media is not just for America's youth, but also America's women -- and sites like Twitter and Facebook may be a factor in winning their votes this year considering women make up about 58 percent of social media users.

"At the end of the day the demographic that's most important is women," James Andrews, a social media commentator and blogger for FastCompany.com, said. "Women dominate the use of social media."

The number of people using networks like Facebook and Twitter doubled between the last presidential election in 2008 and the midterm elections in 2010 to 850 million users.

In that time, though, the proportion of male social media users fell 3 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

President Obama won 56 percent of the female vote in 2008, helping give him the edge he needed to win the election over Republican rival Sen. John McCain.

Also according to Pew Research Center , 22 percent of online American adults used social network sites or Twitter for politics in the 2010 campaign.

Currently, Obama is leading in the polls among women voters. He is also beating his GOP rivals by millions of Twitter followers and Facebook 'likes.' (read more)

President Obama's campaign released two new web videos this week targeting Mitt Romney -- once again showing that while Romney has not clinched the GOP nomination he's the presumptive opponent for the Obama campaign.

A new ad, titled "Hold Mitt Romney Accountable," quotes the former governor as saying, "The president said something very revealing yesterday. He said that in a perfect world, the government could spend a lot more money. I disagree." 

The ad claims, "Mitt Romney is lying about President Obama. Again."

The video follows with a clip of what the president actually said in his last weekly address, "If this were a perfect world, we'd have unlimited resources. No one would ever have to pay any taxes, and we could spend as much as we wanted. But we live in the real world. We don't have unlimited resources."

A similar campaign video released Wednesday, "Mitt Romney Versus Reality," also compares Romney's take on the president's words with what the president has said. 

In addition to the defensive campaign ads, the Obama camp recently launched two new blogs, "Keeping GOP Honest" and "AttackWatch." As part of the campaign's "Truth Team," posts on both blogs have almost exclusively attacked Romney. (read more)

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- GOP hopeful Rick Santorum took a surprise trip down memory lane Wednesday, courtesy of a gift given to him by one of his longtime supporters.

Following a campaign rally here with a homecoming theme and a marching band, the former Pennsylvania senator was approached on the rope line by a man holding a picture taken 18 years ago, when Santorum was making his first run for the U.S. Senate.

In it, Santorum is holding a baby boy in his arms.

"That little guy right there is the big tall kid," Santorum said as he looked at the picture of him cradling his son. "That's John, back in 1994, he was all of 2 years old. That's pretty cool."

The gift was handed over by Dale Dilling, one of Santorum's county chairs in 1994.

It comes as Santorum kicks off the campaign to win his home state's primary -- a contest he guarantees he will win and also admits he must.

He will have a lot of work to do. While Santorum has held a solid double-digit lead over Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania over the past few weeks, the latest Real Clear Politics average shows he is now up by just 6 points.

The former senator is banking on his Keystone State beginnings, and some of those same supporters of the past who propelled him to that senate victory back in 1994. (read more)

Mitt Romney left his GOP rivals behind to focus solely on criticizing President Obama's economic policies while campaigning in Wisconsin the night before the state's primary -- as Rep. Paul Ryan voiced confidence that Romney will secure the GOP nomination against Rick Santorum.

During separate interviews for "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" Monday night, Romney and Ryan both emphasized the need to turn around America's economy and the critical role the issue will play during the general election.

"The president has failed when it comes to caring for the American people," said Romney. "This president's policies have failed. His economic policy has been a bust."

Romney did not speak a word about his GOP rivals during the interview. Ryan, though, said Santorum is not capable of attaining the delegates he needs to win the nomination -- he said Santorum would need about 82 percent of remaining delegates if Romney sweeps the three contests held Tuesday.

"I don't see how he can put it together," Ryan said about Santorum. 

Ryan also said he thinks Romney has the best chance of beating Obama in the general election. (read more)

Mitt Romney, under fire from Rick Santorum for allegedly crafting the precursor to ObamaCare in Massachusetts, explained Tuesday how his approach to overhauling health care at the federal level would be different than the president's. 

Romney, who adamantly opposes the federal health care law, said on "The Tonight Show" that he would want those who have been continuously insured to be able to get insurance going forward.

But he added the security would not be extended to people who apply for insurance once they fall ill.

"If they are 45 years old and they show up and say 'I want insurance because I have heart disease,' it's like, hey guys -- we can't play the game like that," Romney said.

Romney spoke as the Supreme Court prepared to head into the third and final day of debate on the Obama health care law.

Santorum has used the Supreme Court hearing as an opportunity to attack "RomneyCare," saying it is the "blueprint" on which ObamaCare is based. He says Romney can't fight Obama on the issue in the general election.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the federal government's attorney in the case, also told the justices that Congress saw how health care worked "in the state of Massachusetts" and that "it had every reason to think it could work on a national basis." (read more)

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich pounced on President Obama's hot mic comment to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit -- after Obama mentioned he wanted to wait until after the election in November to discuss the proposal to build a missile defense system in Europe.

"This is my last election," Obama told Medvedev when he thought his microphone was turned off. "After my election, I have more flexibility."

Medvedev replied saying "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir," referring to incoming President Vladimir Putin.

While speaking at a rally in San Diego, California on Monday, Mitt Romney mentioned Obama's conversation with Medvedev labeling the exchange as a "troubling development."

"This is no time for our president to be pulling punches with the American people and not telling us what he is intending to do with regards to our missile defense system, with regards to our military might, with regards to our commitment to Israel, and with regards our absolute conviction that Iran must have a nuclear weapon," he added.  (read more)