As Sandy approaches the Mid-Atlantic coast, my thoughts and my prayers are with those who are w/in its path. I have experienced 3 hurricanes and a series of T.S. in the past 20 years, and there are few posters here who better understand the resulting misery than I do. I also understand the complicating factors that will likely compound the misery from this storm. I further understand that, on the eve of a national election, the response to Sandy can show the country why returning to the policies of 2001-08 would be a mistake of epic proportions.
This looming natural disaster is of a scope and a magnitude that is well beyond the capacity of any state or locality to deal w/ recovery efforts. It is a regional calamity that will require significant assistance from our national govt. When we have storm-related power outages in SoFla, crews from GA and the Carolinas come down to assist in rebuilding damaged distribution networks. This disaster will presumably dwarf anything I've ever seen in terms of that task. The restoration of power to millions will require crews from multiple states, and coordinating this effort will be a task of infinite complexity.
Other recovery activities will be of equal complexity. Cleaning up and hauling debris, reopening means of transit, restoring public services, and repairing damaged structures over an area that will apparently span over 800 miles boggles the mind. Doing so as winter is starting to set in compounds the difficulty. Protecting property and preventing looting will be a challenge.
With all due respect to Ayn Rand devotees and champions of the 10th Amendment, there's only 1 entity that is capable of managing such efforts. That entity is one that 1 of our 2 parties has spent the past 3 decades demonizing. As far as the GOP is concerned, Uncle Sam can pile up weaponry, pacify distant people of a darker hue, and not do a whole lot else capably. In a matter of hours, millions of people will need for Sam to do a whole lot more for them.
Our president once told us that there's not a liberal America or a conservative America--there's a United States of America. The next few days offer an opportunity to prove that adage. Were foreign terrorists to wreak the kind of havoc that Sandy will wreak in the next few days, no one from either side of the aisle would question the need for a national response, even when it is blue states that will largely bear the brunt. The fact that nature is wreaking this havoc instead of Al Queda should not change that equation.
Of the parade of horrors that were visited upon us by the W/Cheney regime, the criminal neglect of NOLA post-Katrina was among the most horrific. Sandy will likely prove to be the equivalent of Katrina visited upon an entire region. It's time to show people what a FEMA that's not headed by a horse show judge can accomplish. The GOP's nominee's claims that FEMA is immoral reinforces that argument:
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. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. [...] We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.
A federal govt. that can mobilize the necessary resources to deal w/ such an emergency is one that will earn the trust of the broader public. The head of that govt. will greatly enhance his re-election prospects. One of the primary themes of this campaign has been that one side is running a politician w/ few (if any) discernible qualifications for the job while the other side is running a president. It is time to demonstrate the accuracy of that theme in response to a severe domestic crisis.
Normally, an incumbent who is locked in a tight re-election campaign should be on the stump for as many hours as is humanly possible. Sandy has made this a highly abnormal campaign. I can't recall a natural disaster of anything close to this magnitude on the eve of a national election. Coordinating the federal response to that disaster is far more important than rallying campaign crowds is. While our president is clearly capable of multi-tasking, campaigning should now be of distinctly secondary import.
Our VP is from a state that is likely going to be especially heavily impacted. Having him on the ground once the storm has passed might be helpful from both a public service perspective and a political perspective. Perhaps Secret Service concerns would make it impractical, but there could be no better federal face than Joe Biden in this situation.
In 2008, our president campaigned on a Change platform. On the eve of an election that will, hopefully, grant him a second term, focusing on crisis management instead of campainging would be a welcome change. Hopefully, our president will carry out that change here.