TAMPA, Fla. — With the Republican National Convention at last in full-throated roar, nominee Mitt Romney and his team are reaching out in all directions today to connect with key voting groups including veterans, Hispanics and women while gleefully mocking the man he is out to defeat in November.

Romney himself was ducking out of his own convention in Tampa to address the American Legion Convention in Indianapolis. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a top Hispanic voice in the GOP, made the round of morning talk shows to defend the GOP nominee’s policies. And Ann Romney and Janna Ryan, the wife of Romney’s running mate, were teaming up to headline “Women for Romney” events.

His nomination now official, Romney was free at last to start dipping into his general-election pot of campaign cash.

“We’re excited that now he’s going to be able to spend money, both in English and in Spanish, to explain to people how his policies will help grow the economy, help small business, help people have the confidence to invest in the future,” Rubio said on “CBS This Morning.”

President Barack Obama, for his part, was courting another key voting group — young voters — with a second day of campaigning in college towns. He had hoped to speak on the University of Virginia campus, but the school rejected that idea, saying it would disrupt classes on the second day of the semester. He’ll speak in an off-campus pavilion instead.

The politics played out as Hurricane Isaac blew ashore on the Gulf Coast, casting uncertainty into a convention that scrubbed the first day of events out of fear it would swipe Tampa. Any scenes of destruction along the Gulf Coast were sure to temper the celebratory tone, and further compression of the schedule was possible if the storm proved disastrous.

The GOP’s outreach effort went into full gear after Ann Romney offered convention delegates — and a national TV audience — a soft-sided portrayal of the Republican candidate in her convention address Tuesday night. Her appearance was teamed with a parade of gleeful Obama-bashers as the GOP seized its moment after days of worry about the hurricane.

Today’s list of speakers is topped by Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, before the candidate himself speaks Thursday night to bring down the curtain-closing balloons. Obama’s Democratic National Convention follows next week in Charlotte, N.C.

Rubio held out Ryan as a “serious policy thinker” who’s “going to have a bunch of new fans across this country” after he speaks.

The Obama campaign, in turn, released an online video targeting Ryan as a politician from a “bygone era” whose views threaten Medicare and would gut funding for Planned Parenthood.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also addresses the convention tonight, took aim at Obama on foreign affairs, saying the voice of the United States in world affairs “has been muted” under this president, creating a chaotic and dangerous security environment. She spoke on “CBS This Morning.”

The convention’s keynote speaker, the unpredictable New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, issued a broad indictment of Democrats on Tuesday as “disciples of yesterday’s politics” who “whistle a happy tune” while taking the country off a fiscal cliff.

“It’s time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real leaders to the White House,” he said. “Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good-paying private-sector jobs again in America.”

Romney made his debut at the convention two days before his own speech, rousing the crowd into cheers as he took the stage briefly to share a kiss with his wife after she spoke.