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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says Barack Obama fell "woefully short" as president by failing to keep promises he made as a candidate four years ago.

"We basically have to decide whether we are going to stay on the current path we are on, a path of debt, a path of doubt, a path of decline. Or we're going to reapply our country's founding principles and get us back on the right track and re-ignite the American idea for the American people," Ryan said.

Ryan painted the incumbent Democrat as a big-government liberal on Thursday, hours before Obama delivers his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in North Carolina.

"He can blame other people, but he can't tell you we are better off as a nation," Ryan said.

Ryan says Obama failed to reduce home foreclosures, raise incomes and reduce the national debt.

"Our objectives are very clear. We want growth, we want opportunity, we want upward mobility. We want this to be the land of the free, where the only thing that limits you from reaching your destiny is your own God given talent and your own effort," Ryan said.

He addressed hundreds of supporters inside an airport hangar in Colorado Springs, a swing state where Obama delivered his convention speech in 2008. The rally was at West Pac Restorations, an airline restoration business.

"We can do this. This can be done. It's not too late to get this right. Colorado, Colorado is an important state. I think you understand that. I think you're kind of used to that. You have a huge responsibility but also a tremendous opportunity," Ryan said.

Ryan will be in Los Angeles later Thursday and is scheduled to appear in Sparks, Nev. Friday.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.