Campaign resumes as Romney prepares for one week overseas trip

Romney is heading to Europe with his wife,
but when it comes to foreign policy, Cheney
will always be his virtual companion We're still a bit more than a month away from each party's convention (35 days for the GOP, 42 days for the Democrats) and a bit more than three months away from the general election, but after last week's tragic shooting in Colorado, the campaigns are getting back in swing.

Obama addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Reno, NV at 3:30 pm ET (and his campaign releases a web video in advance of it), while Mitt Romney holds a small-business roundtable in Costa Mesa, CA at 1:30 pm ET and then tapes an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow.

Still, reports First Read, neither campaign will air ads in Colorado for the next few days. I suspect that on balance, Romney welcomes the opportunity to get out from under the pummeling he's been taking over the past few weeks on Bain and his taxes, though (a) that won't last long and (b) he was starting to get comfortable with his bizarre and unsustainable "you didn't build that" attack.

Romney leaves the country on Wednesday for a three-country tour that will include the U.K., Poland, and Israel. The trip is built around the London Olympics and unlike President Obama's 2008 visit to Germany, Romney will not attempt any major events or take any big risks.

Romney's trip will last a week and his campaign says he will not explicitly attack the president while overseas. At first, you might wonder why the campaign would want to give up a week's worth of attacks from Romney with just 13 weeks to go before the election, but it's not like Romney has been stellar on the trail. If "you didn't build that" is as good as it's going to get for Romney, he may be better off out of the country. I mean, it's not like another NAACP speech event is going to help Willard. Plus, now the campaign has a new excuse to stonewall on questions about his transparency.

Come to think of it, maybe Romneyland will decide to extend Romney's trip until mid-August. But if they do, I'd recommend avoiding Switzerland. Or Bermuda.