Obama, Romney camps carefully return to campaigning in wake of deadly storm The Obama and Romney camps waded slowly into campaigning Tuesday in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, announcing events in the battleground states of Colorado and Ohio. The Obama campaign said former President Bill Clinton will make two stops in Colorado -- in Commerce City and Denver. The campaign said Clinton's trip is part of a swing through battleground states and states with strong Democratic bases, which include Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. However, campaign officials did not say if or when Vice President Biden or President Obama, busy with storm response efforts, will resume attending campaign-related events. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is scheduled to attend a storm-relief event in Kettering, Ohio. He will be joined by NASCAR's Richard Petty and country singer Randy Owen to help collect donations. Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan will make two stops in Wisconsin - first in the city of La Crosse, then Hudson, to thank volunteers who are delivering or collecting items for storm relief efforts, according to the campaign. Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, will also attend events in Wisconsin, then travel to Iowa. Aides at Romney's campaign headquarters planned to scale back criticism of Obama to avoid the perception that Romney was putting politics ahead of public safety. Aides said Romney might visit with storm victims later in the week, much as he did when Hurricane Isaac raked the Gulf Coast during the week of the Republican National Convention. Seven days before the election, both candidates and their running mates have tempered their campaigns, eager not to appear out of sync with more immediate worries over flooding, power outages, economic calamity and personal safety. The storm will dominate the news and distract a nation of voters during the crucial handful of days that remain before Nov. 6. "When the nation's largest city and even its capital are endangered, when so many people are in peril and face deprivation, it's hard to get back to arguing over taxes," said historian and presidential biographer Douglas Brinkley. Millions were left without power as the deadly storm whipped its way through presidential battlegrounds like North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire and sprawled as far as the Great Lakes, where gales threatened Ohio's and Wisconsin's lakeside regions. Obama has shifted from campaign mode to governing, abandoning a Florida event Monday with Clinton to return to Washington. He received a briefing from his top emergency advisers, his second in as many days. He addressed reporters at the White House, warning that recovery from the giant storm would not be swift. Obama also expressed concern over the storm's effect on the economy, and the disruptions in New York's financial district were bound to be among those that preoccupied the administration Tuesday. Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. Unwilling to cede the mantle of leadership to Obama, Romney spoke by phone to Deputy FEMA Administrator Richard Serino and officials from the Homeland Security Department and the National Weather Service. Addressing supporters in Iowa, he cautioned, like Obama, that the damage would likely be significant. In the competition for attention, however, Obama held the edge. "This is going to be a big storm," he warned, as cable television broke off to carry his message live. It's going to be a difficult storm. The great thing about America is when we go through tough times like this we all pull together. But as president, Obama could bear the responsibility for any missteps in the government response to the storm. Obama advisers say they've learned the lessons from President George W. Bush's widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. With the race in its final full week, most national polls showed Obama and Romney separated by a statistically insignificant point or two, although some said Romney had a narrow lead for the overall popular vote. The election will be won or lost in the nine most competitive states that are not reliably Republican or Democratic. Republicans claimed momentum in these states, but the president's campaign projected confidence. Romney's increasingly narrow focus on Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio suggested he still searched for a breakthrough in the Midwest to deny Obama the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The U.S. president is not chosen by the nationwide popular vote, but in state-by-state contests that allocate electoral votes. Each state gets one electoral vote for each of its seats in the House of Representatives, as determined by population, and two electoral votes for each of its two senators. That means there are 538 electoral votes, including three for Washington, D.C. The winning candidate must have 50 percent, plus one, or 270 votes. Obama is ahead in states and Washington, D.C., representing 237 electoral votes; Romney has a comfortable lead in states with 191 electoral votes.