Tweet
By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
A number of political analysts have labeled Hurricane Sandy as one of the factors that helped Barack Obama win re-election. Here, for instance, is a typical news analysis about it. Some conservatives have even gone so far as to say that the hurricane gave the election to Obama. It wasn’t the fault of the Romney campaign that he lost; it was the hurricane.
By the by, Obama wasn’t the only president who managed to get a hurricane to hit a major American city during his term. Our previous president George W. Bush also had the good luck of having a hurricane hit a major city in 2005. Strangely, however, Hurricane Katrina did not improve Bush’s popularity. In fact, his approval ratings plunged after the hurricane.
Why did Obama benefit from Hurricane Sandy, while the opposite happened with Bush and Hurricane Katrina?
This is of course a rhetorical question. Natural disasters are politically neutral events. They can hurt or help an incumbent. What matters is the response, not the hurricane.
Obama’s administration responded competently and effectively to Hurricane Sandy. He thus gained political benefit. Bush’s administration responded incompetently and ineffectively to Hurricane Katrina. Bush thus saw his popularity drop.
In fact, that’s a pretty good metaphor for the Obama and Bush administrations overall.
10 Comments
Discussing his memoir “Decision Points” with the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer, Bush recalls when West delivered his infamous 2005 sound bite, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
“That [means], ‘He’s a racist,’ ” Bush told Lauer, “and I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘This man’s a racist.’ I resent it, it’s not true.”
In January of 05, following the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, George Bush approved relief efforts by Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB, Illinois. Air Mobility Command aircraft and people have delivered tons of relief equipment and hundreds of servicemembers into the affected region.
As of Jan. 6, AMC aircraft and aircrews had delivered more than 1.66 million pounds of cargo and 748 passengers supporting tsunami-relief operations.
Col. Richard Richardson, director of operations for the tanker airlift control center, said as soon as officials here learned of the tsunami disaster, they were ready in case AMC aircraft or people were needed.
The first call came Dec. 29 when a C-17 Globemaster III from McChord Air Force Base, Wash., was tasked to move a C-130 Hercules maintenance package from Yokota Air Base, Japan, to Utapao, Thailand. The C-130s are providing airlift within the tsunami-devastated countries.
In the days following that initial tasking, C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III aircraft were called upon more than 20 times, moving everything from helicopters and relief equipment to support people and emergency responders.
Colonel Richardson said as of Jan. 5, AMC had six C-5 aircraft staged out of Kadena AB, Japan, and four McChord C-17s staged out of Utapao. Another C-17, from Charleston AFB, S.C., brought U.S. Army civil affairs Soldiers and equipment to the region Jan. 4.
The C-5s include three active-duty aircraft from Travis AFB, Calif., and two Air Force Reserve planes from Lackland AFB, Texas, and Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass., and one Air National Guard aircraft Stewart Air National Guard Base, N.Y.
The colonel said that Reserve and Guard participation during the relief operations is “significant” and “outstanding.”
As of Jan. 5, AMC aircraft had airlifted the following equipment and people supporting tsunami-relief operations:
– Communications equipment and people assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps’ 7th Communication Battalion in Japan.
– C-17s flew six HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters and two CH-46 helicopters and related support equipment. A single C-17 can carry two CH-46 helicopters.
– Two U.S. Marine Corps Force Service Support Groups. They provide combat service support to Marine Corps forces worldwide.
– A U.S. Navy Seabee from Guam. The colonel said they were flown to the region to provide critical water-well-drilling support.
– A C-17 maintenance package from McChord.
– People and equipment assigned to Kadena’s 18th Communications Squadron.
Besides flying people and equipment, AMC Airmen also ran a tanker airlift control element out of Travis. They will provide on-site management of AMC airfield operations, including command and control, communications, aerial port services, maintenance, security, weather and intelligence — those critical elements needed to ensure safe and highly efficient air bases for all tanker and airlift operations.
AMC’s initial relief efforts have not gone unnoticed.
A senior U.S. Agency for International Development official said support from AMC aircraft has been both welcomed and necessary. USAID is the lead governmental department responsible for U.S. tsunami-relief operations.
Edward Fox, USAID’s assistant administrator for legislative and public affairs, said “the one thing that distinguishes the United States from the rest of the world is its military, especially the Air Force and its airlift capability.”
He said Air Force airlift is a central part of any relief effort of this magnitude.
“To be able to provide the type of emergency response needed to save lives, the Air Force logistical capability is indispensable to USAID and others in the international relief area, because we don’t have those types of assets,” Mr. Fox said. “We are extremely delighted and proud to be working side by side with the U.S. Air Force.”
For example, Mr. Fox said the helicopters being delivered “are worth their weight in gold.” He explained that the topography of Indonesia and other countries struck by this disaster make normal means of transportation impossible.
“Without the helicopters we wouldn’t be able to get the assessment teams in to determine what response to take,” Mr. Fox said. “Helicopters also provide a lifeline to get water, food and medical supplies into these communities to sustain them in the early stages of a disaster; until the normal modes of the transportation are restored.”
This occurred eight months before the “Katrina” disaster. The Indian Ocean is half way around the world from Scott AFB, and New Orleans was two hours flight time from Scott. While the city was flooded, Louis Armstrong International remained dry and able to receive air traffic. C5A’s are really huge aircraft, and just one flight complete with food, water, hospital staff, and rescue personnel, plus the ability to coordinate all military resources in that area; would have solved New Orleans problems, and all it took was one phone call from the White House.
KATRINA TIMELINE
By ThinkProgress on Sep 6, 2005 at 11:53 pm
Sunday, August 28
APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]
Monday, August 29
— KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]
7:30 AM CDT — BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOTIFIED OF THE LEVEE BREACH: The administration finds out that a levee in New Orleans was breached. On this day, 28 “government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, [reported that] that New Orleans levees” were breached. [AP]
11:13 AM CDT – WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]
8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]
LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS
Tuesday, August 30
U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]
Wednesday, August 31
SUPERDOME; CONDITIONS DETERIORATE: “A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. ‘We pee on the floor. We are like animals,’ said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. … By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. … At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming.”” [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/05]
3,000 STRANDED AT CONVENTION CENTER WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER: “With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center — and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them — collecting a body was no one’s priority. … Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions.” [Times-Picayune
They remembered all of those resources that were directed out of Scott Air Force Base, Ill, for people half way around the world in the Indian Ocean; but they forgot they had them for the citizens of New Orleans, which was only two hours flight time from Scott.
I’m not sure this is a fair comparison at all. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were both hurricanes, but other than that there is a veritable plethora of differences.
For one, Katrina was a Category 5 while Sandy was a great big Category 1. Katrina flooded large portions of a large American city for weeks; Sandy’s floodwaters receded quickly in comparison. Most of Katrina’s victims were portrayed by the M$M as poor blacks on welfare, while the same was not true of the people whose lives Sandy disrupted. Katrina killed a lot more people too, if memory serves.
Katrina hit a city in a Southern state that was a lot further away from the resources that were available to help New Jersey and New York after Sandy; a lot further from Washington.
I will add that there was a lot of bias against New Orleans, on the right as a center of sin, and on the so-called left just because it’s in the South. So who cared about New Orleans? New York, OTOH, is the financial capital of the country. Hell, WALL STREET actually CLOSED! Horrors!
The only people really biased against New York and New Jersey to the extent that they would deny them aid are mostly Southern Teabagger types.
Yes, the Bush Administration, and W his own self, really flummoxed the response to Katrina; some would say deliberately in order to drive Democratic voters out of Louisiana. The response was incompetent, inexcusable, and maybe malign neglect. Turning down proffered international aid was a disgusting act of hubris.
Notice there was no offer of massive international aid in the aftermath of Sandy? Maybe because it wasn’t nearly as big a disaster. And all Obama had to do was look more competent than Bush in responding to Katrina.
That’s shooting clay pigeons.
As far as the political analysts you mention crediting Hurricane Sandy with helping re-electing President Obama, I say they are ignorant idiots. Obama won because 1) Romney was an insufferably arrogant rich bastard, 2) Obama pledged to raise taxes on the rich, 3) Blacks were pissed because Republicans in swing states were trying to disenfranchise them and voted anyway, and 4) Romney endorsed “voluntary deportation,” thus turning Hispanics against him en masse even though Obama deported more Mexicans than Bush ever did.
The responses to the hurricanes were insignificant.
There is no evidence that Sandy helped Obama or won him any electoral votes that he wouldn’t have otherwise won. If you have anything to base that claim on, I’d like to see it, otherwise, I’m going to need something more than your opinions and pronouncements to go on. The polls had already been trending Obama’s way and the electoral college was never really in doubt. That piece you linked to is purely speculative. I’m not buying the premise.
What Margaret said.
Margaret is correct about Obama and Hurricane Sandy.
Bush engaged in a transparent attempt to hurt the Democratic Governor’s chances for re-election in the way that the White House responded to the hurricane. The White House and FEMA did not follow the protocols that had been established for FEMA working with the states. Resources were not well prepositioned before the storm and federal resources were not devoted to helping the evacuation, given that it was seen to be a Cat 5 storm. And from the beginning, Bobby Jindal and the Bush administration politicized the response. And would not admit that they were having problems. Heckuvajob Brownie got nicknamed for Bush’s cluelessness.
In contrast, Obama improved Chris Christie’s chances of getting re-elected taking politics out of the mix. FEMA did what FEMA does well and so to an extent did the states, who have the primary responsibility–in part because the difference in the sizes of New Jersey and New York compared to the size of Louisiana did not max out the state and local resources available for the response.
And there was not shelter nightmare like the Superdome or footage like folks being rescued from their roofs in New Orleans.
Neither hurricane affected an election. But Katrina was the turning point of Bush’s slide to failure in popularity that began with the intervention in the Terry Schiavo case and ended with the financial meltdown.
Angels Don’t Play This HAARP. Nick Begich and Jeanne Manning.
HAARP technology, actually Tesla’s technology in secret patents held by Raytheon, is capable of creating and/or directing adverse meteorological events.
And there were the pictures, outrageous as possible, of B strumming his guitar….What a joke; thank goodness we knew better than to elect him.
Don’t be absurd. This isn’t inforwars. Just saying.
Nothing was “flummoxed” in regard to those BLACK people at that “Dome” in New Orleans.
Monday, August 29
— KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]
7:30 AM CDT — BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOTIFIED OF THE LEVEE BREACH: The administration finds out that a levee in New Orleans was breached. On this day, 28 “government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, [reported that] that New Orleans levees” were breached. [AP]
11:13 AM CDT – WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]
8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]
LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS
If you tell me water is coming over a wall behind your house on Monday morning, and I wait until thursday to respond, I want your ass to drown.
If I see you on national TV on Monday morning without food or water, and I wait until thursday to respond, I want your ass to go as hungry as possible, and even die if you’re a diabetic.
In January of 05, following the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, George Bush approved relief efforts by Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB, Illinois. Air Mobility Command aircraft and people have delivered tons of relief equipment and hundreds of servicemembers into the affected region.
As of Jan. 6, AMC aircraft and aircrews had delivered more than 1.66 million pounds of cargo and 748 passengers supporting tsunami-relief operations.
Col. Richard Richardson, director of operations for the tanker airlift control center, said as soon as officials here learned of the tsunami disaster, they were ready in case AMC aircraft or people were needed.
U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]
“The White House” remembered all kinds of shit for people half way around the world but they forgot them for those BLACK people in front of that “Dome”.
They’re treating you, at this very instant, the same way they treated those BLACK people in front of that Dome, and letting you “rationalize” any way you like.
Ohio Barbarian: Well, Katrina flooded much more of the city it hit and killed many more people because the Bush administration was much more incompetent in handling it.
Margaret: You’re quite right. The Hurricane Sandy excuse is just that – an excuse by conservatives that has nothing to do with reality.