Where will the storm take voters?

The campaign headquarters of both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have in recent days been scrambling about feverishly in an effort to refocus public attention on the election after Hurricane Sandy washed away everything in its path, including the discussion over potential voters. Nobody really knows how the lethal storm will affect the election itself. We will have to wait until Tuesday to find out which of the candidates gets to spend the next four years in the White House and which one is swept away with the wind.

It’s hard to talk about politics at a time when 640,000 people watched with horror as their homes suffered damage from the storm. Before Sandy’s arrival, the economy was supposed to be the focal point of the election, especially during its final phase. Instead, Americans watched as their president managed a crisis and a Republican candidate managed a campaign. What is preferable? Analysts’ opinions on this issue are also divided.

On Wednesday, Romney resumed campaigning by making three stops in Florida, where polls show him neck and neck with Obama. While the president watched as recovery crews pumped water out of the streets of flooded New Jersey, Romney could take solace in the adulation he received from the crowd of Republican supporters and alienated voters who backed Obama in the last election. With five days left before voters report to the booths, Romney is enjoying a slim lead in Florida, according to the latest polls.

At the end of the Republican National Convention in Tampa this past summer, Romney was officially handed the nomination. This was not an easy crossing of the finish line for the former governor of Massachusetts, who had to weather one of the most bruising, bitterly contested primary races ever seen in the Republican Party. Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul were unrelenting. The primaries steeled Romney so thoroughly that he entered the race against Obama completely prepared for battle.

With just weeks remaining before Election Day, the month of October proved to be Romney’s month. He crushed Obama in the first debate. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just America that discovered him, but the entire world realized with whom they were dealing.

The next few weeks after the debate were also fruitful ones for Romney. Although Obama did recover in the next two debates, the poll numbers began to favor Romney after it became apparent that the administration failed to realize that a terrorist attack was what claimed the life of the American ambassador in Benghazi. Voters were also turned off by Obama’s poor job performance and unfulfilled promises regarding his handling of the economy. The elections were growing nearer, and momentum had now swung Romney’s way.

Then came Monday night, when a lethal hurricane whose destructive powers, unprecedented in scope, tore through New York and New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy already had one effect that just a week ago seemed implausible. During a bitter election campaign in which both sides relentlessly pounded each other while the “compliments” and television ads grew more negative, Obama got an unexpected boost from the key note speaker at the Tampa convention.

Chris Christie, the popular governor of New Jersey who also considered running for the presidency at the start of the race, showered the president with praise, a move that raised eyebrows among commentators for Fox News. Christie waited for Obama’s arrival and then accompanied the president as he toured the devastated regions of the state. America witnessed perhaps the only instance of Democratic-Republican bipartisanship in the last four years, and it came at a particularly bad time for the Republicans.

Exploiting criticism

In the four years since he first entered the White House, Obama has had difficulty demonstrating leadership. He has had an even more difficult time living up to the expectations that he created in 2008, when he was swept into office in the role of a messiah. It was this last week, however, that he was gifted with an opportunity to project a leader-like image. He visited Atlantic City after taking a helicopter ride with the New Jersey governor in which both men surveyed the damage.

Obama did not forget to bring along the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The president decided to exploit the criticism leveled at the agency by Romney, who on June 13 of this year proposed slashing the agency’s budget as a way of reining in federal spending. In a speech that was televised nationally, Obama mentioned FEMA at least four times while thanking the head of the agency as Governor Christie looked on approvingly. This image was worth more than all of the election advertisements for the entire year. What made it even better was that it came for free.

Obama also took great pains not to repeat the mistakes made by President George W. Bush during the aftermath of the Katrina disaster, when he was engaged in a war of words with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. The president tried to appease everyone by personally phoning governors, mayors, and Red Cross representatives.

In his speech, Obama noted that New Jersey was the hardest hit state, but neighboring New York, Connecticut, and Virginia also sustained damage. “This won’t be cleaned up in one day,” the president said. “We need to be patient.”

“We will not accept any bureaucratic delays,” Obama said. “Every phone call will be answered within 15 minutes.”

“We will not leave anyone behind because this is America,” he said.

Commentators on Fox News sought to remind the president that he had yet to give adequate responses to unanswered questions regarding what took place in Libya. They also wondered why the administration had yet to give the order beefing up security for U.S. diplomats stationed in Libya. Obama knows that the initial solidarity of the first few days after the tragedy will gradually evaporate, and in its stead will come the complaints. That is why he said the top priority was “restoring power to New York and New Jersey.”

Even if the Obama campaign would prefer to see their guy in the role as president rather than candidate, they had to reconcile with the fact that the campaign had to go on. Obama returned to stumping, with visits the next day to swing states Nevada, Wisconsin, and Colorado. The president’s aides also recommended that he not neglect Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, where voters have been galvanized in recent days. The Republicans have made a last-ditch infusion of cash in states that are leaning toward the Democrats.

For his part, Romney refused to answer reporters’ questions regarding whether he intends to shut down FEMA if he is elected. His spokesman, Ryan Williams, took care of matters for his boss, saying, “Governor Romney believes states need to accept responsibility for handling emergency events, like storms and natural disasters that take place in their territory. The states are better positioned to support their citizens and communities.”

Officials in Romney campaign headquarters in Boston continued to cling to the belief that the economy and not the hurricane would be the decisive issue in this election, as it has been throughout the race. Obama has not met expectations, while Romney is perceived by American voters to have a firmer grasp of economic issues and is thus better equipped to provide more jobs.

Romney began his remarks in Florida on Wednesday by asking the audience to take a moment to express solidarity with the hurricane victims. Immediately afterward, however, he moved on to a more urgent topic from his standpoint. “These elections need to be a turning point,” he said. “There are 23 million Americans who are struggling to find jobs. This is unprecedented in American history.”

An election as tightly contested as this one is also unprecedented in modern American history. The numbers in the polls have never been this close since the 1960 election. According to RealClearPolitics, all of the polls average out to a tie between Romney and Obama, each of whom wins 49 percent, a dead heat. If one were to compare it to the 2008 race, Obama defeated the Republican, John McCain, with 52.1% to 44.5%.

The “swing states”

Everyone is wondering: Who will win the necessary 270 electoral college votes on Tuesday? Will it be blue or red? Which candidate will capture Florida, Virginia, and Ohio?

American observers and analysts began speculating as to which strategy the candidates will employ in the swing states. Some claim that Romney feels so confident in these states, including the all-important Ohio, that he has decided to spend his last remaining days campaigning in states in which Obama is assured of victory, like Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

Democratic officials are not underestimating this last-minute Republican blitz. “There’s logic to their strategy,” Democratic strategist David Heller told Fox News.

Given the current state of affairs and the tight race, the Democrats have played their strongest card, former president Bill Clinton. Clinton stumped for Obama in Minnesota even though this state offers just 10 electoral votes and has not voted for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972. Even Ronald Reagan failed to take Minnesota. That’s the kind of effect that even polls have on candidates.

A poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania shows that Obama’s advantage, which was once nine points, has shrunk to four. This galvanized the Romney camp, spurring it to fight even harder to close the gap. David Axelrod, a top Obama strategist, said he would shave his mustache if the president lost in either Michigan, Minnesota, or Pennsylvania.

Obama’s campaign manager said Romney’s decision to pour money in states where Obama enjoys a clear advantage stems from a realization by the Republicans that they will lose Ohio. Still, some say that Romney’s newfound momentum generated this past October will have an impact on these states. Republican officials, however, insist that Ohio is there for the taking. Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to Romney, said on Wednesday that the latest polls show Romney winning in that key state.

“The polls are even,” he said. “We are going on offensive in this state while the president’s campaign is on the defensive.”

How many unemployed?

Hurricane Sandy sowed damage in four states, particularly New York and New Jersey. Virginia and Connecticut also took a hit. The extent of the damage will not be known until those states manage to dig themselves out from under the snow. The key question is how this will impact the rest of the states, particularly those in which the outcome of the race is unclear.

Of the 11 states in which the candidates poured in $1 billion for campaign ads since June, it seems that Romney’s prospects are looking brightest in North Carolina. At the same time, internal polls show that despite his optimism, the campaign is far from over in Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Nobody knows how the hurricane will impact the election this coming Tuesday. The polls are also unable to crown a winner. Obama campaign officials, however, are convinced that the signs of economic recovery at this late stage of the race are enough to ensure him another four years in the White House.

Obama is desperate to hear good news — or, at least less bad news — on the unemployment front. This trend began with the recent data showing that for the first time in 34 months, the unemployment rate fell below 8%.

Romney officials, however, are not so impressed by this supposed recovery, which they say is inaccurate since many unemployed have long given up hope of finding work in Obama’s America. That is why they do not register as those seeking employment. Romney’s aides believe that Obama’s mocking and taunting of the former Massachusetts governor during the debates will come back to haunt the president. The swing voters, including women, were not enthralled by Obama’s aggressiveness.

Many Americans eagerly await the big day on Tuesday. Before Hurricane Sandy, which killed over 60 people and caused extensive damage all along the Eastern seaboard, Romney was enjoying an advantage in the polls. It seemed that he was on his way to completing one of the greatest comebacks in American political history, one that was on par with Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Everyone in the U.S. was talking about the momentum which Romney had accumulated. Some even called it “Mittmentum.” All of a sudden, Sandy reshuffled the deck completely. Now, nothing is certain. Obama, the president who proved to be such a disappointment in office, is back in the picture.

It remains unclear whether voters in some of the storm-ravaged states will be able to get to the ballot boxes. Some of the voting stations are expected to relocate, while others are likely to eschew electronic voting in favor of old-fashioned paper ballots.

In the final week of brutal, bitter campaigning, the candidates began to sound a more unifying theme. There were, of course, the warm words of Governor Christie toward Obama. Then there were the statements made by Ann Romney, who during a campaign stop with her husband in Ohio praised the American people “who know how to come together, Democrats and Republicans.”

Still, behind all of these nice words, the animosity continues to fester between the two camps that are ideologically divided. In the wake of the storm, which may have provided them with inspiration, the Democrats tried to highlight the importance of a strong federal government in Washington, which is contrary to the vision that Republicans have espoused throughout the campaign.

Clinton, the former president, even went so far as to suggest that Sandy was evidence of ongoing climate change, an issue that Republicans refuse to address in their agenda. John Kerry, who covets the secretary of state position in the next Obama administration if the president is re-elected, predicts that this week’s events will propel the Democrats to victory. Nonetheless, there are skeptics within the Democratic tent.

This Tuesday, voters will do what polls have failed to thus far — decide the race. Yet even this is uncertain. John Zogby, a noted pollster, fears that we are in for a repeat of the 2000 election, when a recount was needed to determine the winner of Bush versus Gore. “I am concerned that the crisis of 2000 will repeat itself this time in Florida as well as in other states,” he said.

“I really want to promise clarity on Election Day, but I’m not certain we will attain it,” he said.

With or without Sandy, this race will be close to the very end.