It is a standby of political journalism every four years to ponder what event will qualify as the “October surprise” of the election cycle. The assumption is that the incumbent administration will attempt to manipulate some incident in order to either discredit the opposition or to flaunt their leadership skills. Despite the fact that most presidential elections come and go without anything like that happening, it isn’t just paranoids who wait and watch for something that will change the fate of the candidates. So far in 2012 the only unexpected event that has occurred in October was the first presidential debate that showcased Mitt Romney’s strengths and Barack Obama’s weaknesses. But this week something may happen that could potentially play the role of the last-minute game changer: Hurricane Sandy.
With the East Coast battening down the hatches for a potential disaster, politics is the furthest thing from the minds of those in the storm’s path. But you can bet that both campaigns are pondering more than just changing their schedules to stay out of those areas affected by the hurricane. While the odds of this turning into the kind of political disaster for the president that Hurricane Katrina became for President Bush are fairly slim, some paranoid Republicans may worry that if President Obama is seen as doing an effective job leading rescue or recovery effort in the next week, it could give him a jolt of momentum that could make the difference in a close race. That is possible, but I think the idea that a natural disaster is going to impact the views of a critical mass of voters in such a way as to influence them to support Obama is pretty far-fetched. Though it is to be hoped that federal agencies acquit themselves admirably in the coming days and that no discredit is brought down upon the government or the White House, there is a reason why such events are called disasters. If history teaches us anything, storms provide politicians with more chances to screw up than to look good.
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