Despite Sandy, The Show Goes On

WEEHAWKEN, NJ - OCTOBER 30: Much of the New York City skyline sits in darkness after Hurricane Sandy, on October 30, 2012 in Weehawkin, New Jersey. The storm has claimed at least 40 lives in the United States, and has caused massive flooding accross much of the Atlantic seaboard. US President Barack Obama has declared the situation a 'major disaster' for large areas of the US East Coast including New York City. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Superstorm Sandy left the East Coast battered and bruised with hurricane-force winds, blizzards, and heavy rains that flooded low-lying areas.  The hardest-hit areas include New York City, Long Island, and the shores of New Jersey.  Nearly 90 are dead (as of November 1), millions are without power, and Sandy is on track to be the most expensive storm in U.S. history next to Katrina.

In spite of all this, what's true for Broadway is also true about politics:  The show must go on.  By that we mean the presidential campaign, which has a few more days to go before Election Day.

You could say that, besides President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney taking a break out of respect for the victims, the campaign never really stopped even when the TV networks went wall-to-wall with Sandy.  Both candidates sent surrogates to argue their cause in front of adoring supporters in the battleground states, although they did have to skip Virginia.

But here's an important distinction.  While Obama got to act presidential during a crisis, promising federal aid and visiting the stricken areas, Romney was forced to soften his message and turned his campaign stops into fundraisers for storm victims.

Romney would have gotten a lot more votes if he and his rich pals had gotten together to spend part of their fortunes on relief efforts, instead of having his less-well-heeled supporters give up their spare change and their unwanted canned goods.

Perhaps Sandy was payback for the candidates' lack of attention to climate change during the campaign.  But why alienate the energy companies and the manufacturers, some of whom are your biggest campaign contributors?

How will Sandy affect an already tight election?  People in the affected areas will have to make a special effort to get to their makeshift polling places.  Since some of those areas seem to be in Obama country, the President's chances could be hurt if not enough of those people can make it to the polls.  Results could take days.

Once there, voters will have to decide whether Obama was enough of a leader during the crisis to warrant another four years in the White House, or if they had already made up their minds long before Sandy came to town.

The opening basketball game at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn between the Nets and the New York Knicks has been postponed to November 26.  New Jersey has postponed Halloween until Monday, November 5.  The New York City marathon is still a go.  And the power should be back on in lower Manhattan by Saturday.  Life is slowly returning to normal in the Northeast.  We'll soon see if that's enough for Barack Obama to remain President, or if Mitt Romney rolls in with the tide.