Hurricane Sandy wreaks havoc on presidential race

A car goes through the high water as Hur­ri­cane Sandy bears down on the East Coast Sun­day in Ocean City, Md. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Alex Brandon)

JOSH LEDERMAN

STEVE PEOPLES

Asso­ci­ated Press

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney and Pres­i­dent Barack Obama fran­ti­cally sought to close the deal with vot­ers with pre­cious few days left in an incred­i­bly close race as this year’s Octo­ber sur­prise — an unprece­dented storm men­ac­ing the East Coast — wreaked havoc on their best-laid plans.

Ever mind­ful of his nar­row path to the req­ui­site 270 elec­toral votes, Rom­ney looked to expand his map, weigh­ing an inten­si­fied effort in tra­di­tion­ally left-leaning Min­nesota. Obama sought to defend his­tor­i­cally Demo­c­ra­tic turf as the race tight­ened head­ing into the final week.

Wary of being seen as putting their polit­i­cal pur­suits ahead of pub­lic safety, the two White House hope­fuls reshuf­fled their cam­paign plans as the storm approached. Both can­di­dates were loath to for­feit face time with vot­ers in bat­tle­ground states like Vir­ginia that are likely to be afflicted when Hur­ri­cane Sandy, a win­ter storm and a cold front col­lide to form a freak hybrid storm.

“The storm will throw havoc into the race,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

Before leav­ing Wash­ing­ton for Florida Sun­day, a day early to beat the storm, Obama got an update from dis­as­ter relief offi­cials before speak­ing by phone to affected gov­er­nors and mayors.

“Any­thing they need, we will be there,” Obama said. “And we are going to cut through red tape. We are not going to get bogged down with a lot of rules. We want to make sure that we are antic­i­pat­ing and lean­ing forward.”

An oppor­tu­nity for Obama to demon­strate steady lead­er­ship in the face of cri­sis was off­set by the risk that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, as in past emer­gen­cies, could be faulted for an inef­fec­tive response, with the pres­i­dent left to take the fall.

“My first pri­or­ity has to be mak­ing sure that every­thing is in place” to help those affected by the storm, Obama told cam­paign work­ers Sun­day in Orlando.

He told the vol­un­teers they would have to “carry the ball” while he was off the cam­paign trail.

“I hate to put the bur­den of the entire world on you, but basi­cally it’s all up to you,” he joked.

Obama will hold a rally in Orlando on Mon­day with for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, but he can­celed cam­paign stops in Vir­ginia and Ohio on Mon­day and in Col­orado on Tues­day. He planned to return to Ohio on Wednes­day with stops in Cincin­nati and Akron, fol­lowed by a Thurs­day swing through Spring­field, Ohio, Boul­der, Colo., and Las Vegas.

Rom­ney nixed three stops in up-for-grabs Vir­ginia on Sun­day, opt­ing instead to cam­paign with run­ning mate Paul Ryan in Ohio before head­ing Mon­day to Wis­con­sin, where Rom­ney has chipped away at Obama’s lead.

“I know that right now some peo­ple in the coun­try are a lit­tle ner­vous about a storm about to hit the coast, and our thoughts and prayers are with peo­ple who will find them­selves in harm’s way,” Rom­ney told sev­eral hun­dred sup­port­ers crowded into a field house at the Uni­ver­sity of Find­lay, the sec­ond of three Sun­day rallies.

Romney’s cam­paign con­firmed Sun­day that he would not travel to New Hamp­shire on Tues­day as planned. The cam­paign already can­celed a Mon­day event in New Hamp­shire fea­tur­ing Romney’s wife, Ann. Advis­ers say fur­ther travel changes are likely as they mon­i­tor the storm’s progress.

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden can­celed a Mon­day event in New Hamp­shire. “The last thing the pres­i­dent and I want to do is get in the way of any­thing. The most impor­tant thing is health and safety,” Biden said.

Ryan planned to leave Ohio at mid­day for three stops in Florida. His Tues­day sched­ule, how­ever, shifted him to stops in Col­orado instead of Virginia.

The prospect that bad weather could hin­der early vot­ing and get-out-the-vote efforts is vex­ing to both Obama and Romney.

“Obvi­ously, we want unfet­tered access to the polls, because we think the more peo­ple that come out, the bet­ter we’re going to do,” said David Axel­rod, a top adviser to Obama’s cam­paign. “To the extent that it makes it harder, that’s a source of concern.”

In Vir­ginia, one of the most com­pet­i­tive states in the race, elec­tion offi­cials eased absen­tee vot­ing require­ments for those affected by the storm.

“The state board of elec­tions is already plan­ning for extended hours in advance for absen­tee vot­ing, and it’s now a pri­or­ity, moved up to the same level as hos­pi­tals and police sta­tions to have power restored,” said Gov. Bob McDon­nell, a top Rom­ney ally.

Bring­ing up a safety con­cern, Vir­ginia Sen­ate can­di­date Tim Kaine’s cam­paign urged sup­port­ers to remove their polit­i­cal yard signs. “Due to the poten­tial for strong winds in this storm, the last thing we want is for yard signs to become pro­jec­tiles,” said cam­paign man­ager Mike Henry.

Get­ting vot­ers to the polls — whether early or on Elec­tion Day — is one of the few ele­ments of the race still in the can­di­dates’ con­trol. Although Rom­ney and Obama are in a close con­test for the pop­u­lar vote, the pres­i­dent con­tin­ues to have the upper hand in the most con­tested states.

Reince Priebus, the GOP chair­man, pointed to recent gains for Rom­ney that have lifted him to a vir­tual tie in most national polls. “The chal­lenger always wins in a tie race,” he said.

With time run­ning out, both cam­paigns appeared to be fine-tuning their map of the states where they’re cam­paign­ing the hardest.

A senior Repub­li­can offi­cial, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymity to dis­close pri­vate delib­er­a­tions, said Sun­day that the Rom­ney team was seri­ously dis­cussing send­ing Rom­ney, Ryan or both to Min­nesota dur­ing the final week. The state hasn’t gone Repub­li­can in the pres­i­den­tial race since 1972, but recent polling shows a tighter race there than most anticipated.

In a flash­back to the 2008 race, Obama’s cam­paign announced that Biden will cam­paign Thurs­day in Penn­syl­va­nia, repris­ing a visit to his home­town of Scran­ton that he made dur­ing the final week four years ago. Penn­syl­va­nia, too, has been Demo­c­ra­tic ter­ri­tory in recent years, but Rom­ney has con­tin­ued to con­test the state with an adver­tis­ing assist from the Repub­li­can Party.

Axel­rod, Priebus and McDon­nell spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Warner spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”

Posted by AP News on Oct 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.