Is Hurricane Sandy a Gale-Force October Surprise?
Hurricane Sandy will go down in history not just as the largest Atlantic storm to hit the United States, but also as the October surprise that no political operative could orchestrate — or predict.
Both presidential campaigns said they were devoted to leaving the politics out of the storm, as operatives for both accused the other campaign of politicking. Both suspended overt campaigning, with President Obama returning to the White House but using former President Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden on the trail, and Mitt Romney turning his Ohio rally today into a food drive for hurricane relief. Phone banking and ad buys continued as usual.
But as the winds died down on the Eastern seaboard and the downpours turned to occasional showers, there was no denying that the deadly, devastating storm would leave its mark on the election landscape as well.
One of the initial concerns was about how the hurricane warnings and precautions would affect early voting. As Sandy churned across the northeast and took out power in nearly 8 million households, concern turned to whether voting offices and equipment would be up and running as utility crews gave estimates of 7 to 10 days to restore juice in hard-hit areas. White House press secretary Jay Carney was even asked at Monday’s briefing whether Obama was pondering a way to alter the election schedule.
The storm has even interrupted daily tracking polls by which campaigns and pundits live and breathe, as Gallup announced it would follow Monday’s poll freeze with another poll-less day due to Sandy.
But when is it appropriate for candidates to return to targeted campaigning in crucial swing states? How might the storm affect the vote by sweeping all other issues off the front page? For all the cloud cover of the hurricane, how much does it turn the presidential race into a contest of optics?
“My message to the federal government: no bureaucracy; no red tape; get resources where they’re needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible, and for the duration, because the recovery process obviously in a place like New Jersey is going to take a significant amount of time,” Obama said in a trip to the American Red Cross today. “The recovery process in lower Manhattan is going to take a lot of time.”
Obama was praised for that recovery assistance, advanced by declaring New Jersey a major disaster area, repeatedly today by a Republican governor who has been stumping for Romney. New Jersey’s Chris Christie said the president “has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election.”
When asked on Fox News this morning whether Romney would come to New Jersey to tour storm damage with the governor, Christie replied, “I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested.”
“I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics, and I could care less about any of that stuff,” he added. “I have a job to do.”
As politics invariably creep in to most disasters, Obama will get valuable optics in the last days before the election when he stands side by side with Christie in touring the hurricane devastation.
“Tomorrow afternoon, the President will travel to New Jersey where he will join Governor Christie in viewing the storm damage, talking with citizens who are recovering from the storm and thanking first responders who put their lives at risk to protect their communities,” Carney, who didn’t hold a press briefing today, announced in a statement this afternoon.
Romney is expected to attend a campaign event with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in Tampa tomorrow. He told the Ohio crowd today that he’d spoken with some governors whose states were affected by the storm, but there was no update on whether he’d visit any of those states after Tampa.
A parade of politicians across the airwaves today — save for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) trying to draw attention to the Benghazi scandal — kept focus on the storm’s damage to their districts and recovery efforts.
“You see all these power lines and gas lines that are broken,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), whose 6th congressional district runs up the coast from Asbury Park inland to Plainfield, on CNN today. “…The devastation is unbelievable, homes that are, you know, carried away, destroyed. In Long Branch, two-thirds of the boardwalk is destroyed.”
“Houses are moved off their foundations,” Christie told a press conference today. “There are houses in the middle of Route 35.”
The governor said he’d been able to see pictures of the famed coastline relayed back to his command center from a police helicopter.
“The level of devastation at the Jersey Shore is unthinkable …to prepare the public for what they’re going to see, it is beyond anything I thought I’d ever see, terrible.”
With his 4th congressional district reaching from the Pennsylvania border to the ocean, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said on MSBNC that the coastal areas in his region — Point Pleasant, Belmar, Avon-by-the-Sea — are “absolutely devastated.”
Smith credited Christie with perhaps “saving many people’s lives” with his no-nonsense pulling together of the state’s resources and ordering evacuations in preparation for the storm.
“Everyone needs to be thinking as soon as we get out of this emergency mode, we go right into repair and obviously that’s where FEMA and, you know, the insurance needs to be accessed as quickly as possible,” the congressman said. “Because, you know, we’re approaching winter. So the sooner the rebuilding starts, the sooner people are back in their homes.”
Winter began full-force in mountainous inland regions thanks to Sandy’s catastrophic collision with a nor’easter, though — creating crippling snow accumulations that could also affect which voters get to the polls. Over the next few days it will become more apparent how this weather event will affect voters, from rural Virginia voters who skew Romney to populations in urban areas with flooding and power outages that could chip into Obama’s popular vote.
For Obama to be damaged by the storm, his federally directed efforts would have to be a Katrina-like failure or his appearances at disaster sites would have to be roundly interpreted as a photo op, even given the commander in chief’s job. Romney could be damaged by a presidential-caliber performance from Obama or by visiting a disaster site, which would be more likely to be spun into a photo op than an incumbent’s visit. Either man could be hurt by election irregularities.
Three possible Senate captures for the GOP are also in affected states: Connecticut, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, summed it up on Twitter three days before Sandy made landfall.
“Well timed Frankenstorm. Week before election, pols will stay home and fall all over themselves to serve us,” Sabato wrote. “Need power restored? Fallen tree removed? Call a candidate.”
As politics invariably creep in to most disasters, Obama will get valuable optics in the last days before the election when he stands side by side with Christie in touring the hurricane devastation.
Well, hell. I guess if that’s all it takes for some people – “Gee look, there’s President Obama. Guess I better vote for him.” – then I just give up. Democracy is over-rated.
Yeah, I gave up when we got another moderate Repub instead of a Conservative one.
@Marc Malone Do not give up. To borrow from Rumsfeld….we’re going to the election with the candidate we have, not the candidate you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Don’t sit this one out; the future of the republic is at stake.
So you are going to hold your breath and turn blue because Romney is not conservative enough for you. Iran getting nukes or most Arab cccountries becoming controlled by Al Queda is not as importabt as haveing a President according to your tastes.
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Look out this could be Obama’s October surprise ,he may turn out to be in the right place in the right time ,you remember the old maxim LOCATION ,LOCATION ,LOCATION,well location is where sandy hit and Obama is taking care business.WE don’t have but 7 days left to beat this mistake for all times.
I think Obama should make every one take classes on improving your credit score . That would help out a lot of Americans
If power is not fully restored by next Tuesday in New Jersey, Pennsylvannia, New York and neighoring states, how can they possibly hold an election? And it’s hard to imagine NYC having an election if the subways are still not repaired and running. Salt water is bad news for electrical systems, even if they get the subway tunnels pumped out on time. But can an election date be postponed without a constitutional amendment? “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Election date cannot be altered without an act of congress, which is not forthcoming given the divided nature of the 2 houses. If Obama tries to ignore the law and do it by fiat it will likely backfire on him, but who knows.
The law here in Virginia (and I suspect in other states as well) is that the Governor can, in cases of extreme emergency, change the date of the election. As long as the Presidential electors are chosen in time for them to do their thing in December, it’s not that big of a deal.
But judging from what I’ve seen here, the vast majority of people…especially in the battleground states…will have their power restored well before next Tuesday.
Romney is taking heavy lefty fire on Facebook for his “Reduce FEMA” stance in the first primary debate.
Didn’t Obama proclaim when he was elected, that the seas will begin to recede and the earth will begin to be healed? Once more Obama has been wrong again.
The storm is certainly putting at least a temporary dent in the Benghazi brouha. It does remind us that politics is a lot easier when we can BLAME someone and feel like we have done something. But with a storm, you just have a problem that you have to begin solving right away, and it seems a lot harder than just blaming lefties or righties. Dare I say it is more real word than presidential campaigning or blathering?
The storm helps the Fraud a lot.
It gets Benghazi and Romny’s momentum out of the news.
It gives the Fraud a change to pley his “leader” role, with scripts, of course.
It limits the time for Romney and Romnney ads to be on TV.
It distracts people from the miserable economy.
It may keep some poll watchers away from preventing marxist fraud.
It’s an unintended October surprise…heavily in the Fraud’s favor.
Ambassador Stevens was unavailable for comment.
If the coverage from this helps Obama get re-elected, the damage from the storm itself will absolutely pale in comparison to the 4 more years of destruction it will have unleashed. Damage from storm = billions. Damage from Obama = Trillions.
It seems to me that the states heavily affected by the storm are all Marxocrat strongholds that were already in the pocket of the monster Hussein anyway. If the fallout of the storm does anything it will likely limit the numbers of idiots who might have voted for the wrong side. Things look good for the hinterlands of flyover country, though. The polls will be open there and ready for the Romney tsunami to blow through this country next Tuesday and wash away the stench of the past four years.
I appreciate this take on the current situation and I would consider it an act of God if it plays out this way. However, I fully expect Obama to stay true to his ideology and “never let a crisis go to waste” which means his foremost concern is how to manage this disaster in a way that does not hinder his chances for re-election but allows him to impose the progressive agenda in order to accelerate his weakening of our nation.
New Jersey is not in the Gulf of Mexico. It was going to get all the fed relief it could consume and then some if for no other reason than the Republican governor was something of an aberration. Another good reason is a lot of the NY workforce lives in NJ. Christie could keep the gushing down to the minimum necessary to serve as appropriate gratitude. If NJ had been a Gulf state, Obama would have rushed down to put half the state out of work and the other half on welfare.
“he’d spoken with some governors whose states were affected by the storm, but there was no update on whether he’d visit any of those states after Tampa.”
When Bush deferred visiting Katrina states, the left and the MSM excoriated him for insensitivity and racism. He rightly IMO determined that, given the hurricane’s strain on local resources, trying to accommodate a visiting president would be rude and inconsiderate. Obama will never, ever, suffer from that sort of criticism because he has no qualms about burdening local resources for a photo op.
If this turnes the election, Americans would be as stupid as Germans (some jears ago)and I am not willig to think so.
If he is now hastening into blue states to “help and comfort”, what will people think in red states he did not give a shit for when they where met with desaster?
“don’t think we’re not keeping score”
You’re writing about 2002 when we had a big flood (River Elbe) in Germany and when Schroeder traveled to the areas of destruction whereas his opponent did not. And Schroeder won with a thin margin. Those few voices. That’s why Romney should go there even if the people are not precisely his electorate. But people see it on TV. So he should at least go to New Jersey and/or Lower Manhattan, I think, although I consider the Benghazi thing more important as those mistakes might have been avoided contrary to a storm. As far as I know Americans they will have cleaned that mess up in no time as – so far – a majority wouldn’t wait for the state like here in old Europe where people have forgotten that they have hands. Romney should definitely take a look at Stoiber’s mistake back then.
Although we should rightly remember all the victims of this horrible storm, at this time it certainly seems appropriate that, in lieu of donations for the recovery, everyone should send donations to the Obama 2012 re-election effort….
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Last month, Obama signed off on a 900 million cut from FEMA. If I wait for a New York Times reporter to ask him about this, I’ll experience just a tiny bit of what Woods and Doherty and Smith and Stevens felt when they were waiting for rescue that Obama ordered not to be sent.
It’s enough to, on November 6, make you want to send Obama Packing.
This seals the deal for Obama. It is over
Governor Christie overdid his praise for Obama. This was not a wise move on his part. With just a few days before the election, any wrong move on the part of Romney’s surrogates could prove disastrous for Romney and Christie should know better. Changing the subject and pretending to be Presidential during this crisis can only benefit Obama. Romney should stay focused on the economy, help those who need help in the northeast as he did today, and bring up the Benghazi massacre and demand the President answer the questions that relate to what he knew, when he knew, and show us the orders he said he directed his adminstration to follow.
If power is not fully restored by next Tuesday,
how can they possibly hold an election?
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If Obama tries to delay the elections with an emergency executive order,
millions of Americans will be able to learn/weigh the decisions he made concerning Benghazi.
If the elections go forward Nov. 6 he risks loss of millions of Democrat voters that might not get to the polls to offset the Romney edge.
An ‘Act of God’ has put him between a rock and hard place.
Expect the news to be fawning all over Obama tommorow on his visit to NJ, and Christie will play right into it by praising the president non stop. Romney should have been invited to the tour of NJ to make this a truly non partisan issue.
The polls wiil be in operation with backup generators. Now getting to the pols is another question…
Sorry, Lindsay Graham is the Senator from SC, not my lovely home state of FL.
Wait until Sunday or Monday and the subways are still flooded and the tunnels to NYC are still flooded. At that time our feckless leader will be shown as weak.
All he has done is promise money to the states. Just what have the Feds done to date except talk. What resource do the Feds have to fix this immediately? Very little.
The public that is affected by this storm will not be very happy that their power hasn’t been restored and they can’t go to work or to the store. There will be a giant backlash, because our dear leader has over-promised and under-performed yet again. Keep praising him MSM it will be a great contrast as to what he delivers.
I just wonder what the people of Nashville feel watching all this. They were vertually wiped out and no news coverage and hardly a bucket to bail with as far as help was concerned.
When the wildfires streamed across Texas a year ago this past summer I don’t think any counties were even declared a disaster area so they could receive help.
There have been more disasters….and if you were in a red state you were on your own and you were lucky if they didn’t come down and regulate you to death while you tried to rebuild.
People’s memories are so short.
Just look at all the weeping and tears from those people who bought or built homes 3 feet above sea level on the edge of a beach.
Who would ever have thought that a storm might take their homes.
I don’t mean to sound callous, but now my tax money (and yours) will be used to pay for much of the expenses associated with rebuilding their homes and the surrounding infrastructure. Even if their own insurance covers the costs, the rest of us will still pay more when our own insurance companies raise premiums.
When individuals build homes on the edge of a beach, it is bad enough, but what about when entire cities are build on the edge of an ocean and just a few feet above sea level (or even below sea level in the case of New Orleans). Well, I guess that is what a powerful central government is for – to redistribute income.
If only there were regulations preventing people from building so close to the water line. Oh wait, that would be a socialist take over of our country. I guess there is no good answer.
There could be a good way – besides government intervention – to force people to take financial responsibility for their own dangerous actions, such as building a home on the beach. And that would be to let insurance companies simply make it too expensive to buy insurance when building in such a dangerous location.
But then a socialist government would feel it necessary to step in and relieve those people of most or all of the financial burden by using my (and your) tax money to subsidize their insurance premiums. Oh – I forgot, our government already does this for millions of people, including those on welfare as part of their additional benefits.
Many years ago I had a work associate who had bought an expensive home next to a major river that tended to flood every few years and ruin his home. I foolishly asked him why he continued to rebuild there after every flood, and he said “as long as the government is willing to pay me to rebuild and refurnish my home every couple years, I would be a fool not to rebuild there”. Nothing more needs to be said.
The world will watch in awe as Obama tours the devastation of the Sea Shores. People from all over the world will immediately write to the Obama camaign/ Federal Election committee to request absentee ballots.
Now is exactly the time for most voters to consider the consequences of their political decisions. Hurricane Sandy has just clobbered the middle Atlantic states and far inland. Millions are without life sustaining power. The utilities are under the gun to get it back, maybe in ten days. Scores of nuclear power plants were orderly shut down, in an extreme abundance of caution (they are designed to far greater disasters), then came back as giants to pour oceans of juice back into the grid. Our problem is the distribution system, mostly blown down trees which broke wires, and power poles.
Now consider if these states were supported, in bulk supply, by wind mills, or thosands of acres of solar cells. The alternative energy supply is a few percent of the grid, but consider. The remnants of this infrastructure would be trash, permanently destroyed, totally devastated. The grid would be down for ??? years. What would people do for heat this month? A furnace will not work without electricity.
One party has spent some ninety billion dollars on these technologies. If they regain power, your grid will be shaped by their policies. They are anti nuke, and anti coal fired power plants, which once carried 90 % of our generation. The grid supports your employment, your society, and your home. Consider how you would survive the next hurricane and vote accordingly.
Sandy was a wake up call for America, maybe the last warning.
I live in NYC. I believe it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for Romney to come to New York City and New Jersey ASAP.
Please, Mr. Romney, come now! If Obama wins this election, it is the end of our great nation!
Even if this gives Obama some help. I think it’s a little too little too late. I think the economy is far more important and that has been four bad years compared to a few days of seeming to do the right things.
gee, what a surprise Christie is another RINO idiot. How you liking your buddy now, Ann Coulter. Don’t care about Presidential politics because of storm damage. Having photo ops with the enemy of US. Really? Sure, just borrow some more money from Chinese to rebuild Jersey Shore so the kids can continue to party. In a real economy, one rebuilds after disaster better and stronger. Imagine if you will if we were a net energy exporting country. Using OPM for bettering peoples lives and rebuilding for those who are devastated, instead of more dumping to come for the next generation to pay for.
I think Ann Coulter just has a bunch of fat jokes she wanted to tell if Christie got nominated.
I voted for Lonegan in the primary, anyway. Chris Christie is a disgrace. He should have some pride. Just say no to that 5th donut.