Romney in Florida says he and Ryan want to 'preserve and protect' Medicare

Via POLITICO's Ginger Gibson, Mitt Romney touched on the issue of Medicare in Florida as he campaigned there, not as a centerpiece but as an attempt to set a baseline:

Romney sought to cast President Obama as the one trying to cut the program and the Republicans as the one trying to save it. "The president’s idea, for instance, for Medicare was to cut it by $700 billion," Romney said. "That’s not the right answer – we want to make sure that we preserve and protect Medicare. The president’s plan for our budget deficit was to make it worse. Paul Ryan and I are going to get America to cut our spending and to finally get us to a balanced budget." Romney has begun painting Ryan as a problem solver who will work in a bipartisan manner to fix Medicare. On Sunday, he cited legislation that had Democrats as cosponsors that change the program. "He attacks problems, and he recognizes that there are honest differences between honest people and he looks to find ways to find common ground to bring people together," Romney said. "He’s come up with ideas that are very different from the president’s."

This has been Romney's approach since Saturday, to refocus back on Obama as far as Medicare goes. But there is a difference between the approaches to Medicare that Ryan recommends and what Obama's plan contains, and defining those details is where Democrats believe Ryan will hit headwinds.

UPDATE: Chuck Todd and the First Read folks make an important point about this particular line of pushback from the GOP:

So far, Romney and Republicans will counter that Obama’s health-care law is the bigger threat to seniors and Medicare. "There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare," Romney told “60 Minutes” yesterday. "What Paul Ryan and I have talked about is saving Medicare, is providing people greater choice in Medicare, making sure it's there for current seniors. But here is the challenge for the Republicans: Romney and Ryan are talking about FUNDAMENTALLY changing Medicare whereby future seniors will receive vouchers/premium support for LESS than they currently get under Medicare. What Obama did under the health care law was reduce the rate of growth in non-essential services (like Medicare Advantage), as well as increase premiums for higher-income recipients. That doesn't affect the Medicare benefits that current/future seniors receive.

It's also not clear that "he does it too," when the Ryan budget proposes keeping the majority of the Medicare cuts from Obamacare, will work.