Hurricane Sandy did damage, and a lot of it, to a part of the country that normally doesn’t see hurricane damage. And now it might change the election.

Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Presidential photo-op

Hurricane Sandy cut her destructive swath across New Jersey last Monday. The next day, (putative) President Barack Obama landed in Atlantic City. He authorized some federal disaster relief, a thing that Presidents always do when governors ask for it. And Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) praised him effusively for “a good job.” Indeed Christie did everything but kiss Obama on the mouth.

But as Dick Morris would say five days later, Barack Obama threw away his opportunity in New Jersey. First he was in New Jersey only once. Today in Madison, WI, Obama said he “talked to governors, mayors, and families.” CNAV cannot confirm this and suspects that Obama has done no such thing. Certainly no one has come forward to say how much they appreciate hearing the Presidential voice over the telephone.

(That might be more difficult than it seems. A million New Jerseyans still have no electric power. Many of these get their telephone service from a fiber-optic network. That means they have panels that must have electric power. So without power, they have no telephone service, either.)

Worse yet, no federal aid has showed up in New Jersey. The highest officials who has done anything in New Jersey is Governor Christie. The power outage maps, especially this one from First Energy Corporation, tell the real story. Thousands of people in many townships in Essex, Morris, and surrounding counties still have no power. The PSE&G map shows this also applies to Newark and Irvington in Essex County, and Elizabeth and Plainfield in Union County. They are among the hardest hit areas in New Jersey.

And as CNAV said yesterday, neither FEMA nor their vaunted Youth Corps have done anything in New Jersey. Barack Obama wanted to be the face of Hurricane Sandy response. Instead he is the face of Hurricane Sandy nonresponse.

His catty comment:

Voting [for me] is the best revenge!

didn’t help. Maybe he meant living well is the best revenge. If so, then he is living well, while in New Jersey people are living poorly.

Hurricane Sandy devastates New York

Hurricane Sandy did damage enough to New Jersey, especially down the Shore. She did worse damage to New York City and Long Island. Now some of Barack Obama’s stereotypical constituents are wondering why he does not “bring your truck to this neighborhood, right NOW!” In Brooklyn, a Fox News Channel segment reported such squalor as CNAV cannot describe politely. (This may be a first for Fox News Channel: an NSFW segment.)

CNAV has embedded the Fox News segment below. WARNING: the segment’s title, and even David Lee Miller’s script, describe things that normally bear no mention in polite company. Parental judgment and discretion are advised.

Who will vote, and how, after Hurricane Sandy?

Former Governor Mitt Romney at a townhall in Sun Lakes, Arizona. Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic License

All this to ask: how might Hurricane Sandy sway the election?

David Lee Miller of Fox News said one safe-for-work thing early in his segment:

Folks here in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn aren’t worried about voting. They’re worried about surviving.

A resident of Green Township, Sussex County, New Jersey, said the same late last week. (CNAV might have been off-line, though the site was not. But your editor could still reach out to a few people even then.)

But the Republicans among them, even the many who still don’t have their power back, are determined to vote. The Democratic voters might be less determined. Or they might be disgusted with Barack Obama, who came to New Jersey to talk, accept Chris Christie’s bear hug, and sign a few papers, and then flew out and never followed up.

Before Hurricane Sandy even formed, the chances that Mitt Romney would carry either New York or New Jersey were non-existent. But now they are somewhat more than negligible. No national pundit (not even Michael Barone) will say that Mitt Romney will carry either State. But he could. Suppose enough Republicans and “unaffiliated voters” vent their outrage at Barack Obama’s “vapor response” to Hurricane Sandy. Suppose also that enough Democrats either don’t vote or don’t want to vote, out of that same outrage.

That could give Mitt Romney New Jersey, and perhaps even New York. And even if he does not carry either State, Romney could take Obama’s coat-tails from him. Long-shot candidates like Anna Little (R-NJ-6) might win tomorrow. And Romney, while carrying enough other States, might learn (and be glad to admit) that even the “government dependent class” will break from the government, when the gravy train runs dry.

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