The election’s over. My bets were on President Obama in any case, but the rightful suspension of campaigning in the aftermath of the hurricane catastrophe seals Romney’s fate. Obama gets to look presidential, while Romney disappears. Even if that suspension lasts just a few days, it breaks any momentum Romney may have been building up. Perhaps he could recover it, but the chances are against him, I would think. Things may look differently outside the Eastern seaboard, where normal life still continues. But in the case of a disaster of this magnitude, people’s instincts are to preserve what they can of the status quo, my guess is.
In the meantime, many local officials in the tri-state area have been showing impressive leadership, above all the head of New York City’s crushed transit system, Joe Lhotta, a protege of former mayor Rudolph Guiliani. With any luck, Lhotta will ride his display of organizational skills and crisis management into City Hall as a dark horse candidate in the 2013 mayoral election. That field currently features one more disastrous tool of the welfare-industrial complex after another. And N.J. governor Chris Christie has again demonstrated his take-no-prisoners executive style. Our greatest thanks, however, go out to the anonymous members of the uniformed services who have been working without sleep to help the stricken and to restore the fruits of civilization to the storm path.
I will gladly take that bet. I was concerned about the same thing, that O’bama could steal the show. I think, however, that that was more right wing paranoia than reality. I watched him do his press conference yesterday, and he did not come across with very much energy or inspiring strength. He appeared dour and annoyed, where he probably meant to look serious and engaged. Christy and Bloomberg were much more convincing.
He will do what is expected of any president under the circumstances, and he must be Oh-so-careful not to appear like he is trying too hard. Meanwhile Romney wisely suspended his campaign, and has instead been working to coordinate relief donations in Ohio.
I believe O’bama loses more with early voting polls closed for the better part of a week in swing states, than he might gain pretending to be suddenly presidential to those who have not yet been convinced.
If O’bama gets elected, I am gone. Costa Rica by mid 2013, then possibly Australia. I will not be leaving the United States, the United States I thought I knew will no longer exist. But I will go on record and say that after the inevitable recounts and bad blood that will spill, I am convinced Romney will win… and I will get to stick around a little longer.
It’s true that disasters tend to help statists (Obama in this case), but I think people who don’t live in the East won’t think too much about it. This isn’t like Katrina where people developed a view that politicians were mishandling it. This might help Obama a bit in Virginia and Ohio (which are important swing states), but the brunt of the storm went into New Jersey, New York, and other dark blue states. The logistics of it all might hurt Obama’s popular vote.
I couls easily see this election being a reverse of 2000 with Romney winning the popular vote and Obama picking up an electoral victory. If so, the response of the Republican Party will be vastly more civil than the Democrats in 2000.
More civil? They already treat him as a usurper.
Steve,
Just wondering – why do you add the apostrophe in Obama? I have not seen this before.
PiPer – I do it to amuse myself; its just an extension of the “Irish” jokes that circulated in the last pres election. Of course I know that it is of African origin, and not hyphenated. I don’t think there is an insult intended either way. I take similar liberties with a lot of punctuation… sigh… I live on the edge.;-);-)
Apostrophized I mean. Back on topic, just days before the election, the Democrats are frantically throwing in every worn liberal flag they can find; it reeks of desperation.
Here is a laughable kitchen sink, “Obama” is suddenly proposing a new cabinet position … Perhaps this will work out as well as his “jobs council” Sol
http://apps.facebook.com/thehillsocial/content/264587
I hope we don’t have four more years of Obama, but sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. If four years from now the country is wracked by race riots, burning from war, and still bankrupt thanks to insane leftist entitlement spending, then we’ll have a really strong mandate to not just get Obama out but get leftists out finally.
Ha Ha, sometimes I can’t tell if “I” am being sarcastic much less anyone else;-)
In trading we learn from experience (and money lost), but it is paramount to learn the “correct” lesson. In other words to really understand the Analytical,strategic, or functional flaw they led to getting caught holding a losing equity.
I fear that the same idiots who couldn’t understand basic macroeconomic concepts in the first place, will learn the “wrong” lessons from the coming chaos. Like Obama they will continue to blame it on past administrations and capitalism. They will double down on stupid and vote in a marxist dictator ala Hugo Chavez.