When politicians find themselves in the midst of a crisis, it would be unrealistic to assume that they don’t care about how they do politically because of it. The best way for them to do well politically is to set aside partisan concerns and do their jobs well, working together with others, regardless of political affiliation, to provide the aid that the people need. Both Democratic President Barack Obama, and Republican Governor Chris Christie are doing very well politically, because that is exactly what they are both doing. Compare that with the Bush administration response to Katrina. They did not warn residents to evacuate until after the hurricane hit New Orleans. They did not preposition rescue workers and equipment. Neocon Nero fiddled in Crawford for three days while New Orleans drowned. Instead of taking responsibility, they tried to blame local Democrats, and they favored Republican areas when directing relief. Bush did so poorly politically that he never recovered. Now, the absolute worst thing a politician can do is to get caught trying to use the crisis for political advantage, while doing nothing to actually help. That brings us to Willard Romney.
While President Obama made the decision to cancel scheduled campaign appearances this week in light of the disaster that Hurricane Sandy has brought to New York City, New Jersey, and a number of other states, including the key battleground state of Ohio, Mitt Romney just couldn’t pull the plug. Instead of doing the respectful thing and canceling his campaign appearance on Tuesday, just after Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, the Republican presidential candidate decided to re-brand his "Victory Rally" and call it "Relief Rally" instead.
The campaign decided that it would stage a photo op of Romney accepting food donations from supporters and loading up a truck with food after the event. But campaign staffers soon began to worry about the last minute nature of the call for donations, and worried that people wouldn’t show up with anything. To ensure that Romney wasn’t left without any donations and an empty truck, BuzzFeed reports that the campaign went out the night before the event and spent $5,000 at a local Wal-Mart. They bought up supplies like granola bars, canned food, and diapers. These items were then used as props to put on display while they waited for the real donations to show up.
For their part, the campaign says that it donated relief supplies, but would not confirm an amount.
What makes it all even more ridiculous is the fact that the Red Cross didn’t even want the items that Romney’s campaign collected. They’d have been better served with a $5,000 donations. Of course that wouldn’t be as nice of a photo op as standing by a table overflowing with canned goods… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Cleveland Leader>
When people came without donations, they were told them they were not allowed into the event without a donation and given a donation from Romney’s purchased stash to humbly present to Lord Willard.
Then Romney went back on the campaign trail, but promised no attacks or excessive partisanship, before Obama returned to the campaign also. Like everything else he says, that was a lie. Rachel Maddow contrasted Obama’s and Willard’s responses to the storm.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Did you heat that? An elected Republican official, speaking officially at a Romney campaign rally, said Republicans should tell their children to steal the Halloween candy from the children of Obama supporters to threaten their parents. Despite Willard’s bogus promise, could anything be more extremely partisan than that?
On a final note, Obama has always been willing to work with Republicans to solve the people’s problems and meet their needs by the way he is working with Christie. Can you imagine how much better off we would all be, had Republicans been willing to work with Obama from the time he took office, instead if deciding to sabotage America to make Obama look bad?
8 Responses to “Doing Well Politically in a Crisis”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
How many ways does Romney need to show how phony he is ? He is a very disgusting man— who care how much money he has- how many homes , business, and materiel things ; He lacks a soul — as well as a heart for others-
I betcha he takes the $5000 as a donation to charity , for this years taxes–
He just never seems to run out of new ways!
While this statement of Coulter’s is in reference to Romney’s pro-choice/pro-life flip flops, it is universally applicable to anything he does or says, and it is applicable to the Republican/Teabagger party as well. Certainly not a winning endorsement for Romney, or the party! It shows that the end justifies the means, not just for Romney, but for the Republican/Teabaggers as well. Is this the kind of person that Americans want as POTUS? Even Romney’s own son, Craig says his own father cheats and “That’s what we need in the White House.” To me, it is quite evident that Romney has pulled a Daniel Webster, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for wealth and a few minutes of glory.
And then there is Dayton, Ohio where Romney turned a ‘victory rally’ (doesn’t he wish) into a relief rally for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. The campaign bought $5,000 worth of canned foods etc because they didn’t want the campaign stop to look like a campaign stop. And then Romney, ever the BULLY, bullied the Red Cross into accepting these items, even though they had neither the time nor the resources to deal with them during the crisis. I saw a Rachel Maddow segment that was covering Romney in Ohio at his disaster photo op and a reporter asked him 11 times about FEMA but got the same response (or should I say non response) each time — no acknowledgement that the question was even asked, let alone another lie for an answer. At a GOP primary debate in 2011, Romney very clearly stated that FEMA should be shut down and disaster relief efforts turned over to the states, or better still to private business. Private business, as Romney has so abundantly demonstrated in his own business career, would put profits before people, would gouge disaster victims when they need help the most.
A Care2 contributor wrote this in one of her posts:
This intrigued me so I consulted Wikipedia and found the following:
So Romney proposes to return disaster relief to the states who don’t have the resources and who asked in the first place for such an agency. Go figure. He is just looking for another way to make money on the backs of those that can’t afford it.
As Rachel said at the end of the segment, it would be nice to have a concrete response before going to the polls. Enough of his "Trust me" crap. Trust is earned and he has done nothing to earn anyone's trust!
You seem to have figured it out, but if he can make FEMA for the 1%, you can bet that we poor folk will pay for it.
President Obama has shown the country what REAL leadership is. His opponent is all bluster and that's all he will ever be.
I have new respect for Governor Chris Christie after listening to his comments regarding the President's decisive actions this week.
FAUX NOISE and the RepublicanTs aren't too thrilled with him right now though.
Limbarf was especially ludicrous!~
I thought it was particularly funny when he had the audacity to call Christie "fat".
He is a four star hypocrite, all right!