Aug 31st, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hurrican Campaigning
I know that if I lived in an area that was trying to prepare / evacuate in advance of a major national disaster, what I’d really want would be for a presidential candidate to swing by for a campaign appearance, distracting local political officials and drawing down resources of the local public safety agencies. After all, it’ll look good on camera to be engaged with the problem!
34 Responses to “Hurrican Campaigning”
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August 31st, 2008 at 9:48 am
Too late for the thread below, but I know where I’ve seen that movie poster from…
“My Big Fat Veep Vetting”
August 31st, 2008 at 10:51 am
McCain pulled that stunt during the IA floods, too. Culver asked him not to go & disrupt/divert flood relief efforts, but McCain’s a maverick, no photo opp shall be missed.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Bush was wrong for going to NO too late after Katrina, and he is wrong for going to NO prior to Gustav. Wrong both ways – got it.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am
he=McCain
August 31st, 2008 at 11:33 am
Sonic: Might one difference in those scenarios be that Bush is President, and therefore has some authority over what happens in Louisiana?
August 31st, 2008 at 11:34 am
Hmmm, if he stayed away, well he might be eating cake like Moore likes to point out. If he shows up, he’s a distraction. Maybe he can just hope the hurricane hits New Orleans like the former DNC Chairman, and that creepy Moore do. After all, more damage to fellow Americans in a beaten down city to spite someone is a good thing. Now that’s the classy left leaning crowd I’ve grown to love.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:41 am
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which was hit in 1989 by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Cypress structure (a multi-layer elevated section of freeway) collapsed, burying a number of cars in the rubble. The problem was to dig the people in the cars out before they died of dehydration. Then-VP Dan Quayle came out a day or two later to show his concern- and stayed at the Cypress structure the whole friggin’ day. To protect the vice president, the secret service decreed that no rubble could be moved while Quayle was in the neighborhood. Since no digging was done at night, Quayle’s desire to show his concern added TWENTY-FOUR HOURS to the time those folk spent without water. Some, who had clearly survived the earthquake, died in their cars of dehydration.
Bottom line: no one under secret service protection should go anywhere near a disaster zone.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:47 am
My family left New Orleans at 3 AM this morning and as of 7 AM had gone 25 miles. They are going to Oxford, MS which is about 350 miles and requires going through Jackson, MS where McCain is going. Jackson is obviously not the largest city, and the infrastructure will be strained to move all these people through the area. McCain has no actual responsibility for the evacuation or rebuilding, and people are already moving at less than 10 miles an hour. They really do not need the added delay that his visit will cause.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:57 am
He could stay away and still monitor and discuss the situation closely, as Bush should have three years ago. What people objected to was that the White House was offering photo ops of Bush playing guitar, eating cake, etc. while the storm bore down.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:58 am
For the record, I do agree that there’s some progressive hypocrisy going on around this–I don’t see anything wrong with them soliciting aid during the convention, for instance–but not on this post.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:58 am
What bothers me more is Democrats laughing about the hurricane.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Getting ready to battle a hurricaine is as serious, and as complicated, as getting ready to fight a major battle in a war. Many, many lives are at stake.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Gass: That is upsetting. I think that’s relatively isolated, though, like the feeling a sports fan gets when an opposing player gets injured. The brain instinctively celebrates the advantage, then the conscience realizes that you’re celebrating someone else’s suffering.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
As a Floridian accustomed to such events, I have to wonder if Gov. Barbour REALLY wanted to invite the McCain/Palin entourage to Mississippi. It injects politics into it and of course the media will have to ask Obama what he’s doing….and on it goes. They need FEMA and the National Guard, not more politicians.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
First, not all democrats find Gustav funny. Second, republicans are also looking at the hurricane through political lenses rather than humanitarian lenses. Third, if John McCain really wanted to help, he would be out there raising money or giving blood for the Red Cross rather than distracting the emergency response teams.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Sonic:
Right, so one was wrong for being “too late” and one was wrong for being “before.” Perhaps, a logical mind MIGHT suggest that there is an appropriate period of time after a disaster to go visit, where you can call attention to a crisis, show your own attention to the crisis, and not be in the way of people evacuating the area or relief workers.
Or, you could be intellectually honest and say that it was not Bush’s presence or absence from the New Orleans area that was a problem, but his inaction in response to a crisis on our soil that provoked the harsh criticism. The problem, you see, was not that Bush wasn’t there, it’s that neither FEMA, nor the National Guard, nor the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, nor the Coast Guard, nor ANY part of the government under Bush’s command bothered to do anything until shamed by the media coverage, and yet Bush still thought everyone was doing a heckuva job.
But I realize intellectual honesty is a lot to ask for.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Matt obviously cares about black people.
August 31st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Concern about them “laughing” about Gustav is pretty high up in the ginned up dander department.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
If, by some miracle, McCain loses Mississippi in the general election, this will be the cause, and I will believe there is some hope of justice in this universe.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Freedom Fry, I agree not all Democrats are laughing… and it’s not just some Democrats’ responses I find troubling. Many in press seem to salivating over the potential disaster as opposed to expressing grave concern.
In terms of the McCain team showing up to observe, I figure that they wouldn’t show up if the governors down there told them not to come because they thought they would significantly impede evacuations. I could be wrong.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Bad idea. Like a vulture.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Re: To protect the vice president, the secret service decreed that no rubble could be moved while Quayle was in the neighborhood.
They should have just told the Secret Service top go f*** itself. What could the Secret Service have done about it? Created a major public relations disaster by arresting rescue personal trying to save lives? I’d love to see a judge or jury convict anyone of lese majeste or whatever in a case like that! No, the SS would simply have hustled Dan Quayle back to DC in a huff.
Sounds like someone needed to grow a pair and stand up to those twits an tell them to get the hell out of there.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:16 am
Asked if McCain’s visit to the region was appropriate, Obama said, “I think that with a big storm like this raises bipartisan concerns and I think for John to want to find out what is going on is fine.”
Do you disagree with Obama?
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