by Jules Witcover

On the heels of Superstorm Sandy, a minor whirlwind has been unleashed over how its aftermath may affect the remaining days of the presidential campaign. How do the nominees weather this uncertain period without seeming to take political advantage of it and without backing off and losing valuable, shrinking campaign time?

The immediate response was simple and predictable. President Obama canceled an event in Florida with former President Bill Clinton and returned to the White House to monitor the impact of the storm. Mitt Romney, about to begin an event in Ohio, also halted his campaign amid the worst of nature's assault on the East Coast.

For Obama, the decision was a no-brainer. He could segue into his role as concerned commander in chief drawing an easy contrast with former President George W. Bush's seemingly insensitive Air Force One flyover of the New Orleans devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

For Romney, he could do no less by getting off the trail. However, in so doing, he reverted to a candidate with no role in dealing with the storm crisis, other than saying he had checked in with the National Weather Service and the FEMA and urging people to send money to the American Red Cross.

Bad weather always brings unexpected consequences, and for Romney it dredged up a comment he made in a CNN debate of Republican presidential candidates in June of last year. When moderator John King suggested that perhaps "states should take on more of this role" of dealing with weather crises, Romney agreed, trotting out the conservative view that more of such functions should be shifted from the feds to the states.

"Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction," he said, in an obvious appeal to his party's right-wing base. "And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better."

Romney placed his answer in the context of deficit reduction, saying that, in light of the huge federal debt, "we should take all of what we're doing at the federal level" and ask "what are the things we're doing that we don't have to do."

The moderator, indicating incredulity, asked: "Including disaster relief, though?" Romney, in "severely conservative" mode, replied it was "simply immoral" to "rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids."

With Sandy roaring up the East Coast, a Romney spokesperson quickly said that the candidate had no intention of putting FEMA on the chopping block, but that "states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other national disasters" that hit them. "As first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities ... with help from the federal government and FEMA."

That, of course, is the role FEMA does play, working through the states. But once again, Romney allowed his party's conservative orthodoxy to put him retroactively in a bad light. It was not unlike the way he adhered to the party line when he commented that "47 percent of Americans" see themselves as victims entitled to federal social welfare handouts.

His year-old comment suggesting dumping the federal role in disaster relief on the states will sorely tempt the Obama campaign to jump all over Romney for making it. But the president will be better served right now to focuse on his own role in overseeing efforts to deal with Sandy's aftermath, leaving to the news media to comment, which is already happening, here and elsewhere.

In the loss of a day or two of campaigning, both nominees will do well to put the concerns of Americans imperiled by Sandy first -- or at least to give the clear impression of doing so. Obama already has an advantage in donning his presidential hat and keeping it on, leaving his vaunted campaign get-out-the-vote operation to do its job under heightened difficulties, as Romney's own ground game strives to do the same.

 

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Stormy Weather Politics | Politics

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