Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, a prominent Romney surrogate, is back in the spotlight. Most recently, he took to Monday's Hardball to defend shared elements of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's economic platforms, while giving Romney room to distance himself from his running mate's budget plan.
"This is not Ryan-Romney as a ticket, it's Romney-Ryan," Sununu told host Chris Matthews. "And the budget will be the Romney budget."
Romney campaign talking points obtained by CNN say that, as president, Romney "will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance."
Asked how the Romney and Ryan budget plans would differ, Sununu said, "Romney's is better. It includes a lot of the good features, and it addresses the fact that you've got to get rid of very significant amounts of loopholes, and it is designed to create a growth pattern that generates another three quarters of a percent of growth that fills the hole."
Though Sununu was absent from the national stage for years following his 1991 departure from the George H.W. Bush administration, in recent months he has become one of the Romney campaign's most vocal spokespeople. His time on the campaign trail, however, has not been uncontroversial. In June, he argued that the United States needed fewer teachers, and in July he said he wished President Obama would "learn how to be an American."