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Biden camp says Romney 'ducks the press'

Joe Biden's campaign is accusing Mitt Romney of avoiding the press, following today's reports that the Vice President's staffers -- like Romney's a day earlier -- had restricted reporters from the rope line at a campaign event.

"Press regularly have chances to interact with the Vice President -- including today and several other times on this trip," a Biden campaign official told me, via email. "Mitt Romney, on the other hand, ducks the press whenever and wherever he can."

On Wednesday, Mitt Romney's staff apologzied for restricting reporters from the rope line at a campaign event in St. Petersburg, Florida, following disgruntled tweets from reporters on the trail.

"This was an error on the part of the campaign staff and volunteers," Romney press secretary Andrea Saul told me. "We have reminded them that press is allowed on the rope line to record the governor’s interactions with voters."

But Biden's campaign has offered no similar apology to similarly disgruntled reporters who tried to approach the rope line at the Vice President's event today in Martins Ferry, Ohio. DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse, who criticized Romney's campaign over the restrictions yesterday, argued earlier today that the Biden even wasn't "remotely a close comparison" to Romney's.

But the reports and tweets from the trail make the two events sound very similar: "Four reporters approached Biden as he was shaking hands, with Joe Vardon of the Columbus Dispatch asking Biden about coal — a significant local issue," BuzzFeed's Zeke Miller, who was in Martins Ferry, reported. "Biden ignored the question, as a Secret Service agent tapped Vardon on the arm at the direction of a campaign staffer and asked him to return to the press pen."