The Obama campaign has announced the president will announce some rather centrist goals tonight -- cutting college tuition, boosting natural gas, reducing the deficit -- and the Romney camp is already responding by noting unmet goals from four years ago. First an advance quote from the Obama speech:

"I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one. And by the way – those of us who carry on his party's legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington.

And Romney's advance retort:

"I actually think it will be interesting to listen to the President tonight. What I'd like him to do is report on his promises, but there are forgotten promises and forgotten people. Over the last four years, the President has said that he was going to create jobs for the American people and that hasn't happened. He said he would cut the deficit in half and that hasn't happened. He said that incomes would rise and instead incomes have gone down. And I think this is a time not for him not to start restating new promises, but to report on the promises he made. I think he wants a promises reset. We want a report on the promises he made."

Full advance quotes and info from the Obama camp after the jump:

CHARLOTTE -- Vice President Joe Biden, you may have heard, is from Scranton. He's mentioned it a time or two. Well it turns out he came back to his roots this week, in a manner of speaking, as his entourage was staying at the same suburban hotel as much of the Pennsylvania delegation. But did he deign to drop by to visit his old neighbors? No. To the disappointment of some Pennsylvania party folks, he never found time to stop down to one of the delegation breakfasts.

So the Pennsylvanians had the worst of both worlds. The never saw Mr. Biden but they had to deal with the inconveniences of coping with the fulsome security that surrounded and pervaded their hotel complex.

CHARLOTTE -- Close followers of Early Returns know we've long been a fan and chronicler of Vermin Supreme, a presidential candidate who was on the ballot in New Hampshire but, unaccountably, failed to break through with the Granite State Voters. Undeterred, the advocate of a pony-based economy, whose platform also includes a pledge to travel back in time to kill the baby Hitler, was seeking votes outside the convention hall this week.

He gave us an update on his campaign which he confidently predicted would indeed culminate in his nomination, although not necessarily in this universe. He also kept us up to date on the hygiene program for the boot that he constantly wears on his head.

CHARLOTTE -- A conference call with President Obama today was a small consolation for some 50,000 people being turned away from his speech tonight in
Charlotte.

The speech was supposed to be held in the 70,000-seat Bank of America football stadium but the threat of rain prompted the Democratic
National Committee to move it to the much smaller Time Warner Cable Arena.

"The problem was a safety issue. I could not ask you, our volunteers, our law enforcement, first responders to subject themselves to the
risk of severe thunderstorms," Mr. Obama told ticket holders on the conference call.

"I know it's especially disappointing for a lot of you who worked hard to get your tickets to the event, or traveled or planned to travel a
long way at your own expense to be here," he said.

Still, he said, "We can't get a little thunder and lightning get us down," Mr. Obama said.

Republicans, meanwhile, accused organizers of moving the event to avoid the embarrassment of having a less-than-full stadium. Democrats,
including Pennsylvania party chairman Jim Burn, bristle at that charge.

"It's ridiculous to suggest that it's an enthusiasm issue. People lined up around the block for those 65,000 tickets and 19,000 more
were put on a waiting list," Mr. Burn said in an interview late Wednesday.

State delegations are arranging off-site watch parties for ticketholders from their states whose tickets won't be honored, and
the Obama campaign is encouraging others to host house parties.

"I hope that you have just a wonderful time with each other. It won't be as big a crowd and it will be less fanfare and so forth than it
would have been in a football stadium, but the spirit – that's the spirit that's in everybody's living rooms and small towns and big
cities and suburbs all across the country," Mr. Obama said on the conference call.

"That's what got us here in the first place. That's what's going to keep us going and allow us to accomplish all the things we need to do
to strengthen the middle class."