The storm has passed and the cleanup has begun. As I write this the death toll in the US has reached 62 due to the storm and over 6 million homes and businesses have no electricity. Whole towns were inundated, icons were washed away, and the politics was, supposedly, buried.
But it was never far from the surface. It could never be entirely suppressed, not this close to election day.
The Republican campaign has been confronted by the challenge of President Obama focussing entirely on the responsibilities of his office and not mentioning the election at all, looking every inch the safe and steady commander in chief in the process.
In an attempt to appear so not partisan right now, Governor Romney’s team attempted to turn a planned campaign event into a non-branded hurricane relief event, with some predictably farcical results.
Meanwhile gratitude and praise for President Obama for doing his job well came from the Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie. Those comments were in reality a matter of fact reply to questions about federal assistance, but in the polarized and bitter campaign context it said much more, and that was before the media networks began playing the Governor’s remarks back to back with excerpts from his speech at the Republican National Convention where he lamented the President’s lack of leadership.
President Obama and Governor Romney will stay above the fray for at least another day, with the President visiting impacted areas today and Governor Romney continuing his support work, though further details are emerging that question the authenticity of the Governor’s efforts – the donated items his events generated apparently will be distributed only in battleground states not New Jersey or New York.
The campaign teams, the surrogates, the spokespeople; none of them have let up, even for a moment. While the White House was at pains to point out that the disaster was an issue that transcended politics, Vice President Biden ignored or contradicted that directive by launching a full throated – and probably ill-advised – attack on the Romney/Ryan campaign.
Democrat campaign mastermind David Axelrod has ramped up his rhetoric about electoral maps and expectations, betting to shave the moustache he’s worn for twenty plus years on national TV should the Republicans win one of the three key states of Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Michigan; states where the Republican campaign have cranked up their ad buy.
Despite the best efforts of the two major campaigns to ignore it, climate change is now – at last – a campaign issue. When answering questions about Sandy, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said “we have a 100-year flood every two years now”. A study publicised today suggests that more than 80% of Americans want more renewable energy power in the US.
The biggest political impact of Sandy might, just might, be a renewed push for action on climate change. I wouldn’t count on it though.
