KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- The approach of Hurricane Sandy along the East Coast forced Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to scrap a planned campaign swing Sunday in Virginia, rerouting the GOP contender to the battleground state of Ohio instead.

"I was looking forward to being in Virginia tomorrow but you know the hurricane is headed up there, and I just spoke with the governor, Governor [Bob]  McDonnell, and the governor and I talked about that. He said, you know, the first responders really need to focus on preparation for the storm, so we’re not going to be able to be in Virginia tomorrow, we’re going to Ohio instead," Romney told some 4000 supporters at a rally here Saturday.

The Romney campaign had planned three stops in major markets on Sunday, with rallies in Sterling, Richmond and Virginia Beach, but after canceling the Virginia Beach rally on Friday, the campaign took what an aide said was a "precautionary measure" in cancelling the other two stops. Romney will join his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan for three stops in Ohio Sunday instead.

In Virginia, Romney-Ryan and Victory offices were accepting donations of bottled water and non-perishable food such as beef jerky, granola bars and peanut butter for distribution to relief centers.  

A Romney aide said the campaign planned to reschedule the Old Dominion swing.

Romney urged his Florida supporters, who know something about major storms, to keep thinking about those in the Sandy's path.

"I hope you'll keep the folks in Virginia and New Jersey and New York and all along the coast in your minds and in your hearts," Romney said. "You know how tough these hurricanes can be and our hearts go out to them."

Vice President Joe Biden also canceled a planned rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach, and President Barack Obama changed his travel plans ahead of the storm, leaving for planned campaign events in Florida on Sunday night instead of Monday morning. The Obama campaign has canceled a rally with Michelle Obama in New Hampshire on Tuesday as well, anticipating the effects of the storm may continue even then.

Traveling with Romney on Saturday, Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said he wasn't concerned about the electoral effect of the storm on Florida or elsewhere, but was focused on people.

"Our first concern is with the people that are in the path of the storm. Obviously, that is the No. 1 concern," Rubiotold reporters on the Romney campaign plane between stops in Florida. "Beyond that, I haven’t had time to think about what impact it's going to have on the campaign. I think that’s like a secondary concern at this point."

BOSTON -- Top contributors and advisers to Mitt Romney's campaign huddled Monday for their second major retreat since Romney secured the GOP nomination, a gathering intended to energize and engage donors and spur donations in the campaign's final stretch.

Some of the Romney campaign's biggest benefactors from across the country will meet at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel for the two-day confab, the highlight of which is a gala reception and dinner with vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan aboard the USS Intrepid on the Hudson River this evening. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and reality TV star/real estate mogul Donald Trump are also special guests.

Andrew Burton / Reuters

Former New York Mayor Rudolph "Rudy" Giuliani speaks at a protest organized against the presence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, September 26, 2012.

The Romney campaign hopes this retreat will replicate the success of a larger one it organized in June, when hundreds of donors who had given at least $50,000 were invited to attend a set of briefings with the GOP high command in Utah.

To attend this week's affair, according to one top donor who plans to attend, invitees had to raise $250,000 -- a higher, and thus, more exclusive threshold.

A copy of the event's schedule, posted on the website of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan group which advocates for greater government transparency, shows Tuesday's calendar is filled with meetings with campaign strategists and business leaders.

In the morning, a panel of Romney's top campaign advisers and strategists -- including political director Rich Beeson and pollster Neil Newhouse -- will brief donors on the campaign's strategy and the state of the race.

Later, a second morning session focusing on jobs will feature speakers whose names will sound familiar to anyone who's listened to Romney's stump speech: Jimmy John's sandwich chain founder Jimmy John Liautaud will join energy mogul Harold Hamm on a panel with other business leaders to discuss issues surrounding job creation - still the primary focus of the Romney campaign.

In the only overt fundraising effort to take place at the retreat, donors will join campaign finance chairman Spencer Zwick after those sessions for an event the schedule calls "Make the Difference," and which the Wall Street Journal reports will focus on making calls to reach out for more donations.

The final event on the calendar for most donors will be a debate watch party at the historic Roseland Ballroom on Tuesday night, which will include an appearance by comedian Dennis Miller. Earlier this week, Miller tweeted in anticipation: "I hope Obama comes out just like Biden did. Please."

SARASOTA, FL—Mitt Romney seized on remarks delivered by President Obama today, attempting to seize the role of “change” candidate after the president seemed to suggest in a televised forum that he could not change Washington from the inside.

"We face a Washington that’s broken, that can’t get the job done. The president today threw in the white flag of surrender again. He said he can’t change Washington from inside. He can only change it from outside,” Romney said. “Well, we’re going to give him that chance in November. He’s going outside!”

Romney was referring to an answer President Barack Obama gave to Spanish-language broadcaster Univision at a forum in Miami just a few hours before Romney took the stage. At the forum, which Romney attended last night, the president was asked to name his biggest failure.

The president told the forum’s moderator that he felt his biggest failure was in not passing comprehensive immigration reform, then pivoted to lessons-learned.

“The most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside,” bama said. “That's how I got elected, and that's how the big accomplishments, like health care, got done, was because we mobilized the American people to speak out.”

Romney campaign aides, on the defensive for much of the last week over Romney’s surreptitiously-recorded comments in a May fundraiser, began blasting out the comments on social media, while other aides brought them to Romney’s attention on the nine-minute drive from his lunchtime fundraiser to the afternoon rally.

Taking the podium under sweltering conditions, Romney attacked.

“This is time for a new president. He went from the president of change to the president who can’t get change,” Romney said. “I heard it from the reports that came out and they said the president of the United States says he can’t change Washington from the inside. Isn’t that amazing?”

“No wonder he’s had such a hard time over the last four years his first two years he had a Democratic house, Democratic senate, he got to do whatever the heck he wanted to but he says he can’t change it from the inside,” Romney continued. “Well I will. I’ll get the job done, we’ll change Washington we’ll restore the economic strength."

Republicans quickly flagged Obama's line as indicative of Obama's failure to deliver on high expectations he created as a candidate in 2008. The GOP argued that Obama's comment amounted to a concession that business persists as usual in Washington.

Noting that Obama regularly refers to change in Washington as slow-moving and a goal that must be sought for from outside the capital. "Change is hard" has become a refrain for Obama in his campaign stops, his plea to supporters from 2008 whose enthusiasm has waned.

The Obama campaign quickly labeled Romney’s comments as “wildly out of context,” and called the attack built on them an act of desperation.

Nevertheless, the Romney campaign, sensing an opening, made the concept of Romney-as-change-candidate the centerpiece of today’s rally here in a county John McCain won by only a few hundred votes four years ago, but where Republicans see an opportunity to run up large margins this November.

“Now I know that the people of America have a choice. They can choose thecurrent incumbent. He represents the status quo. If we reelect Barack Obama you know exactly what we're going to see,” Romney said, adding that a vote for the GOP ticket this fall would be a vote for “real change.”

COSTA MESA, Calif. — Mitt Romney said Monday evening that his comments about voters who don't pay income taxes were "not elegantly stated," but did not distance himself from the substance of his surreptitiously recorded remarks at a closed-door fundraiser in May.

The Republican presidential nominee hastily arranged a press conference to do damage control related to comments he made at a private fundraiser, which were secretly recorded and first brought to light by the liberal magazine Mother Jones.

"Of course individuals are going to take responsibility for their life, and my campaign is about helping people take more responsibility and becoming employed again — particularly those who don't have work," Romney said at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, Calif.

At the fundraiser, held at the home of a supporter in Florida, Romney was captured responding to a questioner who asked what he would do to ensure Americans take care of themselves.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what," Romney said.

Romney added: "My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5-10 percent of people who are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon, in some cases, emotion, whether they like the guy or not."

Tonight Romney argued that those comments showcased the extent of the differences between himself and President Barack Obama on the role of government in American lives, and sought to link them to his regular stump speech remarks about what he calls the democratic vision for an "entitlement society."

"This is, of course, something I talk about a good deal in rallies and speeches and so forth, which is the president and I have very different approaches to the future of America and what it takes to ignite our economy and put people back to work," Romney said. "The president believes in what I’ve described as a government centered society where government plays a larger and larger role, provides for more and more of the needs of individuals and I happen to believe instead in a free enterprise, free individual society where people pursuing their dreams are able to employ one another, build enterprises, build the strongest economy in the world."

VIDEO: David Corn of Mother Jones discusses the Romney recording

But when he was asked whether he was distancing himself from his comments on tape, and whether he worried that he had offended a number of Americans, Romney suggested that Obama's message on taxes is, in fact, "attractive" to Americans who aren't paying any taxes, "and therefore, I'm not likely to draw them into my campaign as effectively as those who are in the middle."

Today's firestorm over the leaked fundraiser comments marked the second time Romney's overheard remarks at a finance event have generated national headlines. In April, he told a group of donors in Florida he would consider eliminating the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and dramatically reshaping the Department of Education (among other details not regularly shared on the campaign trail).

Tonight, the GOP nominee denied that he delivers two separate messages to his fundraisers and the American people at large, saying most of what he says in his remarks at finance events is the same as his stump speech. But Romney acknowledged that, in question and answer sessions, donors like to ask process questions about the campaign — issues in which Romney said Monday evening that Americans have little interest, but that donors like to have answered by the candidate.

Under increasing scrutiny, Romney campaign turns to details

"At a fundraiser you have people say governor how are you going to win this? And so I respond well, the president has his group I have my group. I want to keep my team strong and motivated and I want to get those people in the middle, that’s something which fundraising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in knowing can you win or not and that’s what this was addressing," Romney said.

Romney's comments quickly developed into more of a story after the release of the video, prompting an attack from President Barack Obama's campaign manager late Monday afternoon. 

"It's shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives," said Jim Messina, the president's campaign manager. "It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.”

The Romney campaign tried to act quickly to deal with the fallout from the potentially damaging story, releasing a statement early evening from communications director Gail Gitcho looking to add context to the former Bain Capital executive's remarks. 

RELATED: Romney: Senior staffers 'work extraordinarily well together'

But for the Republican's campaign, the emerging firestorm associated with these recordings couldn't have come at a worse time. 

A series of polls conducted in the week following the back-to-back party conventions found that Obama had strengthened his advantage over Romney. These polls and Romney's attack on the president's handling of a siege on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya prompted a new round of open grousing from within the GOP about the state of the Romney campaign. 

On top of that, POLITICO reported Sunday about infighting and blurry lines of authority within the Romney campaign — an ominous sign, given that this sort of finger-pointing is usually more characteristic of losing campaigns. 

Romney himself addressed those reports, telling Telemundo this afternoon that his "senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together."

The Republican's campaign also tried to regroup with a new messaging effort they said would add detail to Romney's existing proposals, an initiative which may well be consumed by the uproar associated with the fundraiser video.

Romney said he would "certainly appreciate" if the leaker — whose identity isn't publicly known — would release the entire tape to provide more context for his remarks.

The Romney campaign began to allow reporters to cover some of their finance events in early May. Typically, a small group of reporters is allowed to sit in for the candidate's formal remarks on behalf of all their colleagues, then file a report for the pool. Events where Romney does not give formal remarks, or where he speaks at a private home or business are exempted from this coverage, so many of Romney's finance events happen far away from the eyes of the press.

Coincidentally, the Romney campaign told reporters just this morning, they would begin to allow video and news photo coverage of their large finances events as well — including planned events in Utah and Dallas.

NBCNews.com's Michael O'Brien contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES -- Mitt Romney pushed back against reports of infighting and personality clashes have plagued his campaign, dismissing those reports as a distraction, and signaling that he planned to make no major staff changes.

"I've got a terrific campaign," Romney told Telemundo's Jose Diaz-Balart in an interview to air tonight on "Noticiero." "My senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together. I work well with them. Our campaign is doing well."

On Sunday night, the website POLITICO published a report which claimed infighting and mix-ups over responsibilities had led to confusion and discord within the Romney campaign, producing a muddled message and self-inflicted errors, like the failure to mention the war in Afghanistan in Romney's RNC acceptance speech. Much of the blame was laid at the feet of the campaign's senior strategist, Stuart Stevens.

Recommended: Under increasing scrutiny, Romney campaign turns to details

In the Telemundo interview, Romney said such reports were a distraction from the driving issues of the election, and dismissed a question of whether or not he would make changes to his campaign team.

"Frankly, these process stories really take away from what's really of concern to the American people, which is an unemployment rate stuck above 8 percent, 23 million Americans out of work, millions of Americans now in poverty," Romney said. "These are the concerns people of America have."

Today, the Romney campaign looked to get back on a message of jobs and the economy, with a focus on controlling the national debt, an issue on which Governor Romney's positions poll strongly. The campaign released two new television ads and held a conference call this morning in a more proactive effort to set their message for the week.

MANSFIELD, OH -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivered a scattershot attack on President Barack Obama on Monday, emphasizing a series of issues other than the economy.

Romney veered from his laserlike focus on the economy as several polls released in the aftermath of party conventions suggested that the incumbent president emerged with the advantage. But in looking to get his campaign back on track, the GOP nominee decided to discuss military issues and his commitment to keeping God in the public square, making his focus on the economy (an issue on which he enjoys an advantage over Obama) secondary.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands on a table as he addresses an overflow crowd as he campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012.

"I will be a president, if elected, that honors that pledge and all the pledges that I make," Romney said at the top of his remarks before a crowd of about 1,200 in swing state Ohio. "That pledge says that we are a nation under God, and if I am president of the United States -- when and if I become president of the United States -- I will not take God out of my heart, I will not take God out of the public square and I will not take it out of the platform of my party."

Romney also served up fresh lines attacking Obama for his handling of last summer's bipartisan deal to raise the debt limit, a deal reached with the approval of both the Republican-controlled house and the president. That deal called for automatic defense cuts to take place in January 2013 if lawmakers couldn't reach some other sort of deal to address the nation's mounting debt. Lawmakers failed to reach a consensus, and the defense cuts loom on the horizon.

In anticipation of the politically difficult defense cuts, Congress earlier this summer passed a law requiring the Obama administration to detail where cuts would fall if they were to reach fruition. But the Obama administration missed the deadline to report back to Congress, giving political fodder to Romney and other Republicans.

"He won't describe all the jobs that are going to be lost -- no, not probably until after the election," Romney said. "It seems we found one secret relating to national security that he's willing to keep."

Here in Ohio, where the unemployment rate is 7.2 percent, nearly a full point better than the national average, a senior Romney campaign adviser insisted voters were still primarily dialed in to economic issues, including debt and the deficit, and that Romney's economic focus could persuade voters who had not made up their minds.

"The number one issue in Ohio is the same as, I think, the number one issue across the country, which is the economy," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden told reporters after the event here.

To be sure, Romney, as per usual, laid out his five-point plan for the middle class during today's stop, and hit the president for what he claimed was the administration's lack of a job creation plan. But other economic-based elements of the Romney stump speech were absent, including any mention of welfare reform, and the once ubiquitous "You didn't build that" attack.

While campaign advisers downplayed the significance of Romney's time spent on non-economic issues today, at least one supporter told NBC news that kind of talk was exactly what Romney needed to win over undecided voters in the Buckeye State.

John Goodwin, a retired firefighter who shares a mutual Mormon faith with Romney, said before the event that Romney needed to communicate his personal values better to wavering voters who don't yet feel they know and trust the man personally.

"If he can take those values and turn them into the presidency, our country will come back," Goodwin said.

In turn, the Obama campaign accused Romney of the very same secrecy for which he attacked Obama.

“What we saw today from Mitt Romney is more of the same evasiveness that has defined his campaign. He said he would repeal Obamacare, but didn’t offer a solution for the 89 million Americans who could be denied coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. He said he would cut taxes, but didn’t say how he’d pay for $5 trillion in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires without raising taxes on the middle class. And he said he would put students first, but left out how his deep cuts to education would hurt schools. Mitt Romney knows it’s political suicide to level with the American people about his ‘secret’ agenda, so he’s evading the truth at every turn," said Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the president's re-election campaign.