Athenae, Nature is Scary, So Called Liberal Media

Hurricane Sandy: Politico is All Over the Important Shit

Nature is currently trying to kick the shit out of an entire half of the country, and it’s time for the big question:

1) Will Mitt Romney’s momentum be stopped?

It’s hard to see how the storm helps. The Republican nominee has more than closed the gap with the incumbent over the final weeks of the campaign, taking a slim lead in most national polls. But his national boost hasn’t been mirrored in two pivotal states: Ohio and Virginia. Already Romney had to scrap a full day’s worth of events in Virginia Sunday.

Obama has had to change his schedule, too, but he’s not the one trying to make up ground.

And even though there are multiple schools of thought on how Sandy could affect voters’ feelings about the candidates or the nuts and bolts of getting folks to turn out, it’s still hard to see how the storm could help Romney. That is, unless the government botches the response and voters blame Obama.

Let’s be clear about this: If government botches the response, voters should blame Obama. Also, please kill me quickly. It’s hard to see how the storm would help Romney? That’s because THE STORM ISN’T ABOUT ROMNEY. It’s about how lots of people are getting their asses kicked and New York is going full zombie apocalypse and we have long lists of folks who are basically being reduced to Little House on the Prairie-style living for who knows how the fuck long. But hey, don’t let’s let that interfere with your need to make everything about OMFG HORSE RACE!

Speaking of which:

2) Does Obama have a natural advantage because he’s president?

It is so rude of Hurricane Sandy to make Obama look good by being in a particular chair at this particular time. So unfair to Republicans.

The short answer: yes. The longer answer: not if he makes an unforced error. While George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina ranks among the worst blunders in modern presidential history, it has also ensured that no president or candidate will under-react to the threat of a devastating natural disaster.

SO IT WAS A WIN, AFTER ALL. That Politico, always finding a silver lining in some dead people. I bet they’re super-glad they’re dead if it gave politicians the wake-up call they needed to realize that making sure people stay alive is the number-one job of fucking government.

5) Does this throw a wrench into Obama’s vaunted ground game?

Maybe.

Well, that clears that up. I’m so pleased we have learned political authority figures to tell us what we need to know.

You know whose “vaunted ground game” this storm throws a wrench into? (How does one exactly throw a wrench into a game? I mean, do you just fling it out on the basketball court or …)The entirety of Atlantic City:

It’s like nothing exists except as holograms in the goddamn TV studio. What’s really fucking depressing? The most grown-up person in this entire story is Mitt Fucking Romney:

“Governor Romney’s concern is the safety and well-being of those in the path of this storm, not political considerations,” said Andrea Saul.

Silly Andrea. That’s not how you WIN THE MORNING AND THE AFTERNOON.

A.

7 thoughts on “Hurricane Sandy: Politico is All Over the Important Shit”

  4. Absotootly! I’ve come to see Kos as a crowdswarmed version of Politico.
    The other question: Will Bloomberg be held to account for getting every single thing wrong in his statements in the days before the storm? The surge was going to be “slow.” The cranes had been checked. The hospitals were fine. He even turned down Obama’s offer of FEMA aid.
    It was a performance that can easily be argued to be worse than that of Ray Nagin before Katrina, and yet I have the feeling that Politico and its Beltway ilk will be saying “What’s to be gained from finger-pointing?” if they bring it up at all. Instead, it will all revolve around “the odds” in the presidential race.

  5. A, I’m thinking that the MSM needs a tongue-in-cheek weighting system for news stories – Starting with Nuclear Holocaust / Biblical Armageddon at, say, 1,000 points…What does Sandy rate at – given the population affected, the number of deaths and injuries, the duration of initial and ongoing damage, the financial implications – I’d sure put Sandy in the 500 to 600 level.
    The presidential horse race? Maybe 300 to 400?
    I’m game, if you want help in developing this “performance measure.”

  6. My local TV News web page is running 2 stories on Sandy
    *) How will Sandy affect the price of our gas locally
    and
    *) Sandy is affecting virtually every state (of course, picked up from the wire service).
    The second one could really be a good article, if a bit long, if it followed the title. Instead, it lists about a dozen states from NC up that are either on the Eastern Seaboard or close to it (like VT and NH).
    While I see that Sandy is a large weather system, the Eastern Seaboard is far from “virtually every” state.

  7. To be accurate, I went back and looked, and they also include Tenn, Ky, Ohio, Ill, and Mich.
    But I still stand by saying that there are 50 states and “virtually every” state is a sensational title (plus the Roadmaster rating for some of these effects is rather low compared to other states).

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