DENVER – Mitt Romney used his final scheduled public appearance before Wednesday's first presidential debate to dismiss the expectations game played by both campaigns in recent weeks and to rally supporters with retooled economic rhetoric geared towards middle class voters.

"People want to know who’s going to win," Romney said of the debate at the nearby University of Denver. "Who’s going to score the punches and who’s going to make the biggest difference in the arguments they make."

"There’s going to be all the scoring of winning and losing, and you know, in my view, it’s not so much winning and losing or even the people themselves — the president and myself — it’s about something bigger than that," Romney continued, dismissing the parlor game of expectations-setting that has defined much of the political discourse in recent days.

In his own form of spin, Romney said he was "delighted" about the chance to debate President Obama three times in the next month and declared that the debates, taken in sum, would "be conversation with the American people that will span almost an entire month."

Before a raucous crowd of more than 5,000 supporters, Romney infused his economic talking points with a middle-class focus that perhaps spoke to the recent debate prep designed to refine his message to best appeal to undecided voters.

"Income is down some $ 4,300 dollars a family and with a median income of about $50,000 dollars that means things are really tough for the American people," Romney said. "The middle class squeeze has been unbearable. Gasoline prices way up; food prices up; electricity prices up; health insurance prices up. The American middle class is struggling under this president."

In interviews before the event, Colorado supporters uniformly told NBC News that if Romney needed to show more of a personal understanding of middle class life on Wednesday if he wanted to siphon support from the president

"I really think that Mitt needs to be more personal with the American people," said Renee Salza, a Realtor and Republican who is supporting Romney. "I think a lot of people feel he's somewhat aloof and disconnected from everyday Americans."

Romney, who referenced Colorado's defense community at NORAD and the Air Force Academy, was also joined by a state icon of a different sort, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, who endorsed Romney in a brief on-stage appearance.

“I must say today has been a very good day, not only because of what happened yesterday," Elway said, referencing the Broncos' thrashing of rival Oakland yesterday, "because I get the opportunity to introduce to you the next president of the United States, Governor Mitt Romney.”

Updated at 8:02 a.m. ET: MIAMI — Mitt Romney said his campaign is about "100 percent" of Americans as his campaign continued to work to contain the fallout from controversial comments he made at a private fundraiser in May.

Romney, speaking Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, softened his tone in reaction to a question about his surreptitiously-recorded comments to donors, in which he dismissed 47 percent of Americans as not winnable because of their dependence on government.

"First of all, this is a campaign about the 100 percent. And over the last several years, you’ve seen greater and greater divisiveness in this country. We had hoped to come back together but instead you've seen us pulled apart," Romney said. "I am concerned about the fact that over the past four years, life has become harder for Americans."

Jim Young / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney arrives at Univision and Facebook's "Meet the Candidates" Forum moderated by Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos in Miami, Florida, September 19, 2012.

That represented a softer, more inclusive tone for Romney, who dropped language he had used on Fox News and with Republican donors about the comments reflecting the role of government in society.

Later at a rally at an exposition center in Miami, Romney evoked his father, whose bootstrapping history he regularly references on the campaign trail, as an example of someone who benefited from government help without becoming dependent.

"My dad was born in Mexico of American parents living there. At age 5 or 6 there was a revolution. They came back to the United States, and my dad had to get help, financial help. The government helped his family be able to get on their feet again," Romney said. "By the way, that’s the way America works, we have great hearts; we care for people who have needs. We help get them back. We help lift them up but then they go back to their permanent lifestyle. We help people, we get them on their feet and they build a brighter future.”

Romney also laughed off another controversial remark from the leaked tape, in which he told donors about how being a Latino himself might have helped his chances against President Barack Obama. Romney's father was born in Mexico, and a Univision moderator asked him if he was certain he wasn’t Hispanic.

"I think for political purposes that might have helped me here at the University of Miami today," Romney deadpanned.

The event marked a renewed effort by Romney to cut into Obama's sizable advantage with Latino voters. He was softer on immigration, health care and education issues, all the while attacking the president for failing to fulfill his campaign promises to the nation's fastest-growing demographic group.

At the Spanish-language forum, Romney pledged a solution to what he called the nation's broken immigration system. He said he had no intention of "rounding up" the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants thought to be in the United States illegally while his plan takes shape.

"I said I'm not in favor of a deportation, a mass deportation effort rounding up 12 million people and kicking them out of the country," Romney said. "I believe people make their own choices as to whether they want to go home and that's what I mean by self-deportation. People decide if they want to go back to the country of their origin and get in line legally to be able to come to this country."

'Federal solution'
Democrats have attacked Romney's "self-deportation" concept since the primary campaign, when Romney used immigration as an issue with which to attack his rivals from the right, essentially promising to make economic opportunity so scarce for illegal immigrants that they would leave the United States voluntarily.

Before an almost exclusively Latino audience on the campus of the University of Miami, Romney defended his support for only one provision of a controversial Arizona immigration law and praised legal immigration as key to America's vitality.

"One aspect of the Arizona law which I think is worthwhile to consider and be part of a federal solution is this idea of an employment verification system," Romney said when pressed on his past praise for the Arizona law. Romney said the law would not have been necessary if President Obama had followed through on promises to reform federal immigration laws in his first term.

"The reason there is an Arizona law is because the federal government and specifically President Obama didn't solve the immigration problem when he came into office," Romney said.

With polls consistently showing Romney trailing President Obama by a 2-to-1 margin among Latino voters, the outreach by the former Massachusetts governor here – aimed at all Latinos, but with a particular focus on the Cuban-American community here – is critical.

That might be why Romney, who rarely mentions his Massachusetts health care reform law because of its similarities to the president's health care reform bill, embraced his connection to some of the law's most popular provisions here. Among Latinos, health care has been a key issue.

"I have experience in health care reform," Romney said after vowing to repeal President Obama's healthcare reform law. "Now and then the president says I’m the grandfather of Obamacare. I don’t think he meant that as a compliment but I’ll take it. This was during my primary. We thought it might not be helpful. But I’ve actually been able to put in place a system that fit the needs of the people in my state. And I’m proud of the fact that in my state after our plan was put in place every child has insurance. Ninety-eight percent of adults have insurance, but we didn’t have to cut Medicare by $716 billion to do that."

The Obama campaign quickly responded to the events, accusing Romney of offering only platitudes to the Hispanic community.

"Mitt Romney is wrong on issues of importance to the Hispanic community. On critical issues, he continued to refuse to answer any of the tough questions or provide any specifics on what he’d do as president," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement. "We are just two weeks away from the first presidential debate, where the American people will demand more than vague answers and empty platitudes. It’s time for Mitt Romney to come clean and get specific about his policies.”

NEW YORK – Ann Romney will attend a fundraising lunch to raise money for husband's presidential campaign at the home of former President George W. Bush next Tuesday, a Romney campaign spokesperson confirmed. Former First Lady Laura Bush will host the lunch, which is part of a Romney fundraising swing through the GOP donor-rich state of Texas, at the couple's home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas.

Romney campaign aides said Thursday they were unsure whether former president Bush would appear at the lunchtime event at his home, or at a separate finance event with Romney later that evening at a Dallas hotel. A Bush spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on the former president's schedule, but one Texas Republican close to Bush said he will be in Dallas on Tuesday.

In keeping with Romney campaign policy on finance events at private homes, the fundraising lunch at the Bush home will be closed to the press.

On Monday, September 10th, Ann Romney and Laura Bush held a similar joint event together at a private home in Oklahoma City. Ticket prices ranged from $1,000 for general admission to $25,000 for a VIP reception, according to an invitation to the event posted online by the Sunlight Foundation, non-partisan group which advocates for government transparency.

Since leaving office with historically low approval ratings in 2009, the younger Bush has stayed largely out of the public spotlight. Other than telling a reporter in May that he was supporting Romney, he has not been a vocal presence in the 2012 campaign. Likewise, Romney rarely invokes the name of the most recent Republican president on the campaign trail.

Bush's father, former president George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara have been much more outspoken Romney supporters, first backing Romney last December then formalizing their support in March with a camera-friendly sit down chat at the elder Bush's Houston office. Barbara Bush even recorded robocalls on Romney's behalf during the critical primary contest in Ohio.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney takes questions from reporters Friday at the airport in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.

ABOARD THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN PLANE -- After a week of debate prep and minimal campaigning while Democrats soaked up the political spotlight in Charlotte, N.C., Mitt Romney on Friday opened day one of the fall campaign sprint to Nov. 6 by launching himself out of the starting blocks like Usain Bolt at the Olympics.

Aided by access to an ever-growing pot of general election money, the former Massachusetts governor's campaign announced Friday it was taking to the airwaves with no fewer than 15 new television ads in eight swing states.

When the tepid August jobs report numbers were announced at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Romney aides told reporters he'd make himself available for a morning press conference, a rarity for the traveling press following either candidate this cycle. That session with reporters would ultimately be crammed in on the tarmac in Sioux City, Iowa, between Romney's one-on-one interview with Fox News' Brett Baier and the first of two large swing-state rallies of the day.

At his rally in Orange City, in a deeply conservative corner of Iowa carried easily by Rick Santorum in January's caucuses, Romney hammered the president for an "extraordinarily disappointing" convention speech, and tried to offer his own hopeful take on the nation's future.

"I know there’s a lot of bad news out there, but I’m looking beyond the bad news," Romney said. "I’m looking over the hill and seeing what’s going to happen just down the road just a bit. And what’s going to happen is America’s about to come roaring back. I’m absolutely convinced."

Friday evening, Romney was scheduled to host another rally in New Hampshire in a baseball stadium, inviting direct comparison with President Barack Obama, who also held a rally in the Granite State Friday morning.

The full court press continues this weekend, when Romney will attend a rally in Virginia and take in a NASCAR race. On Sunday, Romney will appear in an exclusive interview on NBC's “Meet the Press,” his first appearance on the most-watched Sunday public affairs show since announcing his second run for president. Viewers who change the channel to ABC or CBS will find interviews with Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, who Friday held his own rally in Sparks, Nev.

With 60 days to go, it’s a marathon, and a sprint.

Mary Altaffer / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan, and their wives, Ann Romney, second form left, and Janna Ryan, greet supporters Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan went to military country Saturday and promised those serving our country that if elected, they would not cut the military budget.

"Now there’s only one place -- there’s only one place this president’s willing to cut, and not just a little.  He wants to cut a trillion dollars out of our military budget," Romney told the crowd to boos. "Look, that’s bad for jobs and it’s bad for our national security. The world is not a safer place right now, not with Iran trying to become nuclear, dangers throughout the world.  If I’m president and Paul Ryan’s vice president we will not cut our military budget."

While Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, continues to campaign against these pending defense cuts, he in fact voted last summer for the Budget Control Act of 2011, resolving the debt-ceiling debate, that included this defense sequester.

Romney and Ryan spoke here in Jacksonville, which has the third-largest naval presence in the country.

"I look around here and I see veterans, I see Air Force, I see Marines, I see Army over there, I see a lot of Navy," Ryan said before the roughly 5,000-person crowd. "Thank you for your service to our country. You make us proud."

The GOP ticket has been trying to reach out to different pockets of the electorate in the past week to try bridging the gap for Romney as he trails President Barack Obama in polls. The GOP nominee’s wife, Ann Romney, held events geared toward both women and Hispanics. Mitt Romney traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday to address veterans at The American Legion.

The military vote, which according to exit polls went for Republican candidate John McCain 54 percent to 44 percent in 2008, could help Romney defeat Obama this fall.

Romney advisers concede the state of Florida -- which even hosted the Republican National Convention this year -- is all but essential for a Republican victory on Nov. 6.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is in our hands, it is in your hands. Florida, Floridians, you have a major say so, you have a big responsibility and a big opportunity," Ryan said, speaking at The Landing on a very hot day. "If Florida goes the right way, America goes the right way."

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets audience members Saturday at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio.

CINCINNATI -- Mitt Romney marked the start of the fall campaign Saturday, which coincided with the season-opening weekend of college football, by comparing President Barack Obama to the coach of a faltering team whose losing record means he must be replaced.

"One of the promises that he made was that he was going to create more jobs and today 23 million people are out of work or stopped looking for work or under employed," Romney told a raucous rally crowd in Southern Ohio in the morning. "Let me tell you, if you have a coach that is zero and 23 million, you say it's time to get a new coach. It's time for America to see a winning season again and we're going to bring it to them."

Romney, who pulled out of a planned joint rally with his running mate Paul Ryan in Virginia in favor of a trip to survey hurricane damage in Louisiana on Friday, hit the stump with renewed vigor, cribbing from his Thursday night acceptance speech at the RNC convention and whipping up a crowd of supporters in an art deco train station cum museum, where the acoustics led to Romney's words often being drowned out by applause.

"United, America built the strongest economy in the history of the earth. United we put Neil Armstrong on the moon. United we face down unspeakable darkness. United our men and women in uniform continue to defend freedom today," Romney said. "This is a time for us to come together as a nation. We do not have to have the kind of divisiveness and bitterness and recriminations we've seen over the last four years. I will bring us together."

Supporters here said they were happy to hear Romney return to the themes of his convention speech, with even long-time Romney backers like Sheila Bender of Lebanon, Ohio, telling NBC News that the convention speech helped her learn more about the man she planned to vote for in November.

"The convention helped me to get to know him a little bit better, Bender said, adding "I learned a lot."

Democrats quickly hit back at Romney's speech, calling his campaign promises empty, with Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith labeling them "the same failed policies that crashed our economy and devastated the middle class in the first place and are promises the middle class just can’t afford."

Introducing Romney in a red golf shirt with the Cincinnati Reds logo on it, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman also used a sports metaphor, this time a baseball one, to praise the GOP ticket:

"So Cincinnati, what about those Red Legs," Portman asked. "Last night the team that has won the most games in baseball has won again, with a home run by Jay Bruce ... I see another world series title coming to Cincinnati folks! And here's what else I see: with a home run by Mitt Romney at the Republican convention, I see the Romney/Ryan team going all the way to the White House."

Brian Snyder / REUTERS

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, center, talk with people at an ice and water distribution point while touring damage from Hurricane Isaac in Jean Lafitte, La., on Friday.

KENNER, La. -- With the formal nominating process of the Republican convention behind him, Mitt Romney stepped off the campaign trail for several hours Friday afternoon to tour storm-damaged neighborhoods and meet with local officials in hurricane-battered southern Louisiana.

On Friday morning, the Romney campaign scrapped plans for an afternoon Romney-Ryan rally in Virginia, sending Ryan alone after an event in Florida and diverting Romney, on his new campaign plane, to Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans.

On the ground, Romney met with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Sen. David Vitter, both Republicans, to tour the area, which was hit hard this week by Hurricane Isaac, and to meet with first responders.

"You and I have talked several times. You said you wanted to support the folks, wanted to make sure they had everything they needed," Jindal told Romney when the group convened along the highway. "Appreciate you being here."

Romney said the visit, which lasted several hours, was meant as an opportunity to hear from residents and to bring attention to their plight, and his campaign said Romney attempted to cause minimal disruption to the recovery effort here.

“I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going here,” Romney told Jindal. “So that people around the country know that people down here need help.”

Isaac outages keep heat on Louisiana; twister alerts inland

Romney spoke with a handful of residents here in this heavily Republican state, which isn’t expected to be competitive in November.

“I thought he’d be more like a politician, but it was more understanding and caring,”  42-year old Jodie Chiarello, who spoke with Romney outside the post office in Jean Lafitte post office said. “He was caring,” she said, adding that she would “probably” vote for him.

A senior Romney campaign adviser said the campaign did not take into account when President Barack Obama might visit the New Orleans area, saying the trip was not meant as a political exercise and dismissing any suggestion that visiting before the president would be inappropriate.

"There have been concerns about being disruptive of the recovery. I mean I think that is why we are going with a smaller group now and why we [are] deferring to the governors," strategist Stuart Stevens told reporters, who were split into a smaller pool to keep the traveling group small. "I'm sure that’s a consideration. You don't want to disrupt things."

After the Romney campaign announced the trip, the White House advised reporters that the president would cancel a campaign event and travel here on Monday.

KENNER, La -- It was a substance-free, 12-minute prime-time performance that remains unlikely to sway a single vote, but Clint Eastwood's cameo appearance and conversation with an empty chair representing President Barack Obama in Thursday night's final hour of the Republican convention coverage remained a prime topic on the campaign trail Friday.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Actor Clint Eastwood speaks to an empty chair Thursday during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Mitt Romney's top strategist told reporters on the candidate's campaign plane Friday that the moment should be judged as a performance, and that while not everyone may have liked it, Eastwood's very presence -- and concern for out-of-work Americans in particular -- made the rambling remarks by the 82-year old Academy Award winner worthwhile.

"The fact that he’s there shows he’s speaking his mind and if somebody wants to say I would have liked this different performance or that difference performance, have it," Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens told reporters, comparing the remarks to two famous Eastwood films. "Some people didn’t like 'Dirty Harry,' some people didn’t like 'Gran Torino,' that’s OK."

And while Ann Romney and several of Romney's top advisers remained stone-faced during Eastwood's appearance, Stevens said Mitt Romney very much enjoyed it.

"I was backstage with him and he was laughing," Stevens said."[Romney] thought it was funny."

A Romney adviser confirmed the remarks were ad-libbed, and the use of an empty chair as a prop was not discussed by the campaign. If there was any panic during the remarks, the adviser said, it might have come from the control room, where convention planners watched Eastwood continue for more than double his allotted time.

"He did what actors do sometimes, he did a little improv. If someone wants to say this wasn’t Clint Eastwood’s greatest performance, have at it. It doesn’t matter, you know," the adviser said. "It’s I think people saw that Clint Eastwood was not only endorsing Romney but endorsing the need for change. I liked that."

Meanwhile in Virginia, Romney running mate Paul Ryan faced a question by a reporter from NBC’s Hampton Roads affiliate WAVY if Eastwood's remarks were a distraction.

"I think Clint Eastwood was just being Clint Eastwood,” Ryan said in the interview to air Saturday. “One of the most profound things Clint said was that 23 million people out of work struggling to find jobs is just unacceptable."

Vice President Joe Biden, who was the butt of several of Eastwood's sharpest jokes, didn't mention the 'Dirty Harry' actor's performance during campaign stops in Ohio Friday.

But, according to pool reports, a supporter did allude to Eastwood's chair act, insisting to Biden during an impromptu stop at an Ohio fairgrounds that "You gotta keep the chair."

Biden didn't directly acknowledge the "chair" comment but gave the woman, Bev Kalmer of Poland, Ohio, a kiss on the lips.

Ann Romney, who spoke in prime time on the first full night of the convention, told CBS that Eastwood is "a unique guy and he did a unique thing" during his RNC appearance.

Asked if she was surprised by the unusual speech, she laughed and said merely "I didn't know it was coming."

Related: Clint Eastwood's 'invisible guest' RNC appearance is a hit online