GOP Cancels First Day of Convention Due to Storm

(Newsroom America) -- Organizers for the Republican National Convnention have canceled Monday's opening day as Hurricane Isaac bears down on Florida's west coast.

"The safety of those in Isaac's path is of the utmost importance," presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney tweeted after GOP officials announced they had shelved the convention's first day.

Romney, who is scheduled to address the convention on its final night Thursday, took a rare day off the campaign trail to spend it at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire. Aides said he was receiving updates as he prepared his speech.

Earlier, Romney fought off attempts by the Obama campaign to tie him to controversial comments about rape and abortion by Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate who is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in November.

Romney, in calling Obama's attempt "sad," said as governor of Massachusetts he had helped women by guaranteeing health coverage for them, as well as men, through enactment of his state's health care reform plan. Romney has vowed to repeal Obama's healthcare reform law, however, saying states, not the federal government, should be free to enact their own reforms.

"It really is sad, isn't it, with all the issues that America faces for the Obama campaign to continue to stoop to such a low level," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday."

Speaking on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Romnney needed to reach out to woman and Hispanic voters if he is to have a chance of beating Obama. He said he must convince those two demographics that "jobs and the economy are more important perhaps than other issues."

Akin said during an interview last weekend that bodies of female victims of "legitimate" rape were somehow able to avoid pregnancy, comments that set off a firestorm of negativity and more than a few calls from his own party for him to step aside and allow another challenger to take on McCaskill, whose seat was once considered vulnerable but who now holds a substantial lead over Akin in the polls.

Akin has remained defiant and has so far refused to step aside.

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