I am grateful for the steady leadership of President Obama as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the East Coast with historic ferocity. While Mitt Romney has turned tail and run in fear, without leaving behind an ounce of support, President Obama has calmly met with his disaster response team and provided for rescue teams, vital resources, and economic aid to be provided to the areas within the storm's projected path of devastation.
An even more striking distinction in character can be seen in their electoral responses. While Mitt Romney has sat at a safe distance and gloated over how many electoral votes he might gain from storm damage suppressing the ability of people to vote, President Obama has maintained constant contact with state governors, city mayors, and federal emergency agencies, and has made the necessary preparations to avoid red tape and "respond big and fast" to this hurricane. While Ohio Governor John Kasich smugly focuses on the electoral outcome, President Obama has worked to protect Ohio residents who will are in the path of spin-off storms expected to head west.
Mitt Romney is hoping that this storm hurts communities enough to keep voters away from the polls on the election day. But for those states in the line of this storm, including North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, and, yes, even Ohio, I'm betting that those voters will do whatever it takes to be heard, in light of President Obama's leadership contrasted against Mitt Romney's cowardice - which is simply an extension of Mitt Romney doing nothing for the American people for the last four years, consumed as he has been with his own lurch for power. Romney's response to the storm can only remind us of George W. Bush's late and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, met with political rhetoric, but no preparation and no real action. And I'm just guessing that people from Nevada and Colorado to Florida will take particular interest in noting how well President Obama, quietly and without fanfare, self-congratulation, or exploitation for electoral gain, is already responding to a once-in-a-century weather disaster.