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Hurricane Sandy and its political consequences for the election
Here, where I live in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC, Hurricane Sandy hit hard, all day yesterday and almost all night. It was stormy, really stormy, but we were lucky - dodged a bullet -- not even a power outage, which we otherwise always suffer when big storms move across the Washington area. The large trees in our front yard still stand although they swayed alarmingly during hard rain and violent winds.
So we were lucky, while north of us there is tragedy and utter devastation -- upwards of 40 deaths, eight million without power, and billions and billions in damages.
Today I was on Swedish Radio’s “Studio Ett” to discuss Sandy’s implications, if any, on the presidential election campaign together with Professor Erik Åsard and the radio’s Washington Correspondent Ginna Lindberg. It’s hard to gage the effects but my inclination is that Obama might profit politically from Sandy, if he does not make any serious mistakes or gaffes.
Both Obama and Romney have suspended their campaigns, at least until tomorrow, which has put Obama in the center of this huge news story while it has forced Romney to the sidelines, without any role at all, away from the center of attention. And it happened just as Romney was reported to gain fresh momentum.
How will this affect the very last days of this campaign? We don‘t know, at least not yet, but this has not prevented "a perfect storm of political speculation," as one of Washington Post columnists writes today.
So far, President Obama seems to have done well and praise such as from Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, cannot hurt:
"President Obama called me last night around midnight ... to ask what else could be done [and] offered any other assets that we need ... I'll have to say the administration, the president himself and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate have been outstanding with us so far . We have a great partnership with them, and I want to thank the president personally for his personal attention to this. "
Tomorrow, when the president visits the devastated New Jersey
shores together with Christie, this message will be re-enforced. And Romney can only stand by and watch.
But there are also possible negatives for the Obama campaign in that Sandy has put an end to early voting in many states. So far, 15 million voters have already voted, of which over a million in the key state of Ohio. Another nearly 20 million are expected to vote early, the majority of them being Obama voters. If they are now prevented from voting early because of Sandy, and if they then don’t have time or are able to vote on Election Day, it could have negative consequences for the Obama campaign.
But we really don’t know, yet.
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A Swede's view from D.C.
Internationally renowned journalist Klas Bergman will on a continuous basis cover the 2012 U.S. election process from a Swedish American perspective. Born in Stockholm, Bergman spent most of his adult life outside Sweden, reporting from western and eastern Europe, the Middle East and the U.S., based in Washington, DC and working mainly for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and the Christian Science Monitor.
His primary domicile has been America, ever since his early student days in California in the 1960s. He now lives in the Washington, DC area.
For more information on the columnist and communications specialist, see http://ksbergman.wordpress.com
Klas Bergman's second book, "Drömmarnas Land" is released in Sweden on Sept. 20. isbn 978 91 7331 515 9. 278 pages, hard cover, in Swedish.
Carlsson Bokförlag.
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