WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is reshaping his message from an all-economic pitch to an all-out challenge to what he argues is a failed status quo, taking a risk with barely 50 days to go in the campaign.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie will have an elevated role in shaping the campaign message for the GOP nominee and will focus it more tightly on a broader change-versus-status-quo strategy.

"The timing is right at this moment to reinforce the specifics, more specifics about the Romney plan for a stronger middle class," Gillespie told reporters during a conference call Monday.

The point, Romney aides said, is that if voters find all aspects of the status quo, including economic and foreign policy, acceptable, they should vote to re-elect President Barack Obama. But if they are fed up with what Romney argues is failure across the board by Obama, they will turn to Romney.

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