Republican nominee Mitt Romney (AP Photo)

DENVER (AP) – A senior adviser to Mitt Romney says viewers of tonight’s debate will see that Romney “really cares about putting Americans back to work.”

An Obama campaign adviser, meanwhile, says the president plans to “have a conversation with the American people about where we’ve been over the past four years.”

Those previews, on CBS this morning, come in advance of the first of three planned debates between the two candidates. The first one focuses on domestic policy.

The debate comes as Romney trails in the polls in a number of key states. He’s looking for a breakout performances in the three debates over the next three weeks.

Republicans have tried to frame the economic debate in their terms by pointing to yesterday’s comments by Vice President Joe Biden in North Carolina — where Biden said the middle class had been “buried the last four years.” The Republicans say that’s an acknowledgement that Obama’s policies have failed.

Obama’s camp responds that the policies of Obama’s Republican predecessors had caused the damage.