But Romney will somehow get half the country to believe that Obama conjured the storm using Socialist Muslim voodoo. Anyway, batten down the hatches, everyone in this storm's path. Wind, rain, snow, probable power outages.
Here you go Deck. I brought this up a few days ago in the main election thread but I can see the see the storm possibly affecting voter turnout in the swing states of VA, NH and possibly OH. That could hurt Obama in VA and NH since Republican voters are more likely to turn out and the storm will affect North Eastern VA where it is more heavily Dem. than West and South VA that is more heavily Rep.. If the storm is bad enough and brings a lot of snow and moisture into the Cuyahoga valley that could help Obama by depressing Rep. vote turnout. All of this depends though on exactly how lingering the affects of this storm is. A week may be enough time to get things relatively back to normal. As far as the reaction to the storm as sitting President this is Obama's to lose. Romney can say whatever he wants and isn't accountable to the recovery but if things are bad he risks alienating people if it looks like he is trying to score political points off of the crisis. Further so much coverage will be geared to the storm and the response that Obama will get more coverage than Romney and unlike Romney he will be in a position to actually do something about it. The only way this response helps benefits Romney is if it is very bungled like Katrina and Obama makes a "heck of a job type comment" like GW Bush. From the reaction side of things this is actually a big potential benefit to Obama, essentially an October surprise, IF it is handled well.
Well, Romney wants the private sector to be in charge of disaster relief and Ryan has already tried to strip FEMA of $10 billion in federal disaster aid...wanting any aid to only be given out if the money can be taken from elsewhere. Under those plans, Katrina victims would still be standing in line.
To ease Deckard's concern here is an analysis from NBC that gives reasons why this storm is more likely to benefit Obama than Romney. http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...-the-campaign-goes-on-sort-of?lite&ocid=msnhp [rquoter]*** Three larger points to make about Sandy: But there are three larger points to make about Sandy: One, you’re not going to see the candidates campaign in Virginia or New Hampshire for the rest of theweek and perhaps for the rest of the campaign. (They can’t bring their motorcades and Secret Service protection to these areas.) Two, three days from this campaign are essentially going to be erased. (Yes, Romney is hitting three battleground states of Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. And Bill Clinton and Biden are stumping in Florida and Ohio. But how much coverage is that going to receive?) And three, if you’re the president, you do your job. That’s probably why you saw the president -- who landed in Florida yesterday -- decide to return immediately to the White House today. The only unforced error a campaign can make during this storm is acting TOO political. And the Obama campaign erased their unforced error without having today’s awkward campaign event play out on TV potentially. The person in the real bind right now is Romney. What does he do that doesn’t look overly-political or insensitive? He has no specific job right now. *** Who benefits from a freeze in the campaign? You can also argue that any freeze in the campaign benefits Obama. Why? Because it stops any PERCEPTION of Romney’s momentum. Now, the Obama campaign argued on Friday to NBC News that talk about Romney’s momentum has been overblown the past couple of weeks, since Romney hasn’t made up more ground in the battleground states since mid-October. "His momentum narrative does have an impact on how people view the race on the ground in the states," an Obama campaign official said, per NBC’s Mike O’Brien. "And we wanted to correct it." What is going on here? The fact is, there is momentum -- it’s just not apparent as much (if at all) in the battleground states. We are seeing momentum in what we’d call the fringe states -- that’s why Romney has shot up in the national polls, and why states like Minnesota and Pennsylvania are suddenly a bit closer. But little has budged in the battleground states. Yet here’s the simplest reason for why this freeze in the campaign hurts Romney. Instead of every news organization in the country covering his campaign like this, “Mitt Romney took his message of change to X, while Barack Obama took his message of don’t go backwards to Y,” the lead for the next three days will be the storm and fallout from it. And the president will be more legitimately involved in that story than Romney -- simply because the president runs the government, period.[/rquoter]
Excellent take on the storm's impact, judo, and I'm glad you edited your other post as well. I feel a bit better about it, although the impact of the storm on the people and infrastructure of that region is freaking me out. Yes, there will be an impact on the campaign, obviously. On both campaigns. We'll see how this plays out, and graduate theses by the score will be written about it in coming years. I'm still worried about the political aspect, from a Democratic point of view, but I definitely feel less worried than I did before starting this thread(s). ;-)-
It's really not going to make a difference but when Romney wins it will become the focus and excuse of Obama supporters claiming that their voter turnout was more hindered getting to the polls than Romney's. They'll point to voter turnout in 2008 and show how much less Obama support turnout was this time around, etc., etc. But even if the storm weren't there, Romney would still take the election.
I think the biggest potential impact is in PA - but if PA is close enough to matter, then Obama is probably losing anyway. They don't have any type of early voting so election day really matters. Obama's strength is more eastern PA, which is likely to get hit harder than western PA. Flooding, power outages, etc change people's priorities, and Dems are generally less committed voters. Combine that with probably fewer volunteers for the ground game, etc - and you have a perfect storm of problems for Democrats there. All that said, it's unclear how much damage there will be at this point, and how long that damage will last. On a side note, Romney is cancelling several campaign events today and all of them tomorrow.
If Romney loses I suspect you will see Romney supporters saying they lost their momentum and that the President got to appear Presidential for a week following the storm.
I will be excited to see their theories on why the polls did not turn out totally wrong as they assured us would happen.
No. If they lose it is because they did not stay far enough right and on point and they drifted too far to the middle. But that's not going to happen. Obama is done. He's been done for several weeks now.
Really? How do you explain that Romney didn't see a surge in the polls until he presented a much more moderate image in the first debate than he had at the primaries or RNC?
Already staging wildland firefighting resources in Massachusetts, Albany, and Long Island. A number of incident management teams on standby with others notified. Most Hot Shot crews and saw teams east of Miss. River on standby to help clear areas of downed and hazard trees. If this goes as it is looking like it will, there will likely be a bunch of wildland fire vehicles driving from the Western states by Wednesday/Thursday. We probably have about 8-10k folks we could send if needed, most of those being Native American crews. We also have the largest cache of portable radios and repeaters in the world (8,000 handheld radios, 200 repeaters, and 15 portable satellite systems... enough to outfit 32,000 firefighters and support 53 separate incidents) which can be deployed to assist local responders and if the normal comm network is damaged. We also have 42 portable Remote Weather Access Stations that can be set up to help NWS with specific local forecasts.
What's the capacity of the bus (both in terms of cargo and ability to go where needed) and what's the population of the area affected by the storm? Is the campaign going to make sure that the bus and reporters following the bus don't interfere with other efforts?
