Mitt Romney, Joe Biden make Wednesday campaign stops in Tampa Bay area

TAMPA - Mitt Romney is vowing to deliver "real change" in Washington, instead of just talking about it.

He was back on the campaign trail Wednesday in Florida, where he spoke to about 2,000 supporters at an airport hangar in Tampa.

Despite Romney's indirect criticism of President Barack Obama, he didn't use Obama's name in his remarks.

He's looking to soften his tone, as Obama takes another day off from campaigning to tour the storm-ravaged New Jersey coast with Gov. Chris Christie.

Romney encouraged Floridians to donate "a dollar or two" to help storm victims.  He said, "We want to make sure that they have a speedy and quick recovery."

Romney is attending three rallies across Florida today, a day after canceling some events. A rally in Ohio yesterday was redesigned as an event to promote relief for hurricane survivors.

And aides say that as much of the country remains focused on the aftermath of the storm, the political balancing act isn't over.

They also report that their internal polling offers a better outlook for Romney than does recent public polling that gives Obama an edge in some swing states. But they concede that the distraction from the storm has frozen any momentum Romney had coming out of this month's debates.

Vice President Joe Biden is calling advertising released by Republican Mitt Romney "an outrageous lie" for asserting that automakers General Motors and Chrysler are adding jobs in China at the expense of workers in Ohio.

Biden says in Florida that Romney is "trying to scare the living devil" out of people who have been hurt by the loss of auto jobs in the past.

The ads are airing in Toledo, Ohio, the home of a Jeep plant run by Chrysler. Chrysler and GM officials have disputed the ads, calling them inaccurate.

President Barack Obama and Biden have touted their rescue of the two auto giants in 2009. The companies received billions of dollars from the government to go through bankruptcy and have recovered since the bailout, adding thousands of jobs.