The Politics of Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy approached the east coast of the United States, many meteorologists attempted to predict when and where it would make landfall. Although some predictions differed, one thing was standard – all of them over-sampled Democrats by about four percent. Dubbed Frankenstorm, Sandy finally hit New York, New Jersey and other surrounding areas with a vengeance, causing mayhem and destruction. (Yes, I know that also describes the Obama economic policy.) Some media outlets stopped using the term Frankenstorm, realizing that the term may be offensive to monsters.

New York City was virtually shut down for a couple of days and afterwards many residences remained without power, water or even homes. The city in its entirety looked like it had been taken over by Occupy Wall Street. With no power and the inability to get basic services (or even basic cable), there were some reports of looting. Thanks to Twitter, we had photographic and video evidence provided by the looters themselves. In fact, many people had made plans to loot before the storm even made land. This is important, I think, as no one should just start looting willy-nilly. Flat screen TVs and laptops were the hot items – and just in time for the holidays! No doubt, mom must be proud. Wait! That is mom!

Fortunately, Mayor Michael “Sixteen Ounce” Bloomberg leapt into action and immediately announced that the New York City marathon would not be cancelled. This was good news for runners as a new feature in this year’s race included three stops for mandatory looting. President Obama wanted to get a first hand look at the damage in New York, but Mayor Bloomberg said no, thanks, but he had a race to organize. After suffering enough verbal abuse in the media you would have thought he was a Republican, Bloomberg relented and cancelled the race.

Unwelcome in New York, Obama was nevertheless was greeted warmly across the river by New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie. Some conservatives thought Christie was too accommodating to Obama and would have preferred he perform one of those WWF wrestling moves on him. You know, the one where one wrestler leaps from the ropes to land on top of the other one. From my perspective, Christie did what he should have done – acted like a governor. He does have a job to do.

President Obama has a job to do too – campaign. After viewing some of the devastation in New Jersey, Obama took off for another visit to Las Vegas. Some called this a campaign stop, but that’s not entirely true. While in Las Vegas, he was able to monitor more devastation at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. That’s almost the same as the real New York, right? Besides, several slot machines were down for maintenance. Good thing the President Obama was there to console the anguished gamblers – and take a few campaign contributions.

For his part, Mitt Romney took time out from his campaign to help collect canned food donations from supporters. Predictably, this was ridiculed by the good folks over at MSNBC for they are certain that like health care, education, child rearing, economic investment, economic transactions, mortgage lending, life, death, calorie intake, acne care, advertising and on and on and on, disaster relief should be the sole responsibility of the government.

I leave you with one last thought: Should Romney win the election and the economy improves in 2013, how long before New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, credits, not Romney, but Hurricane Sandy for the economic recovery?

Curtice Mang is the author of the new book, The Constitution – I’m Not Kidding and Other Tales of Liberal Folly. He can be contacted at www.mangwrites.com, where one can also purchase his book; or contact Curtice at mangwrites at cox.net.