October Surprise Garners New Meaning

Courtesy: NASA

Contributed By: William Snyder; Co-Founder Fourth Party Politics
 
The term October Surprise has garnered a whole new meaning in the wrath of Hurricane Sandy. Sandy has devastated people along the eastern seaboard and knocked out power to over 8.5 million homes from North Carolina to Maine and as far west as Michigan. The Presidential campaign has temporarily been put on pause with just one week remaining until Americans cast their ballots to decide the next leader of the free world.

It remains to be seen how Sandy will effect next Tuesday’s election especially in down ballet races in coastal communities in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Will the candidates be able to return to battleground Virginia, where its 13 electoral votes could decide next week’s election, or is the campaigning in Virginia now going to be decided by each campaigns ground game? New questions arise out of a natural disaster in the middle of a hotly contested Presidential election. How do the candidates continue to campaign amidst a disaster? With the death toll now at 50 and expected to rise in the coming days, how will people view politicians courting votes in Ohio and the Midwest while 50 million plus people continue to feel to effects this historic perfect storm?

Tomorrow Gov. Romney is expected to go back to the campaign trail while President Obama will continue to play the role of President and tour the devastation in New Jersey with Gov. Chris Christie. It is expected that the earliest President Obama will regain his campaign schedule is on Thursday. Until then, Former President Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden will be darting across the country making the closing arguments for the Obama campaign in a race that is now simply too close to call.