Irene: A Very Political Hurricane?

Hurricane Irene has already claimed a victim: President Obama’s short week-long vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. The violence of the predicted weather phenomenon, and the place that climactic and ecological disasters have taken in American political life since George W. Bush’s disastrous management of Katrina, have mobilized politics and turned Irene into an early comeback.

Among the events cancelled and postponed sine die, the tribute to Martin Luther King set to take place on the National Mall in Washington was meant to celebrate the 48th anniversary of his “I Have A Dream” address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the unveiling of a statue in his likeness. It will be rescheduled.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, and the 44th President are on deck and definitely counting on using their management of Irene to seduce the electorate. With 2012 in mind?

For North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, this is a chance to defend her very fragile post in 2012. She is in her first term, she’s a Democrat, and her approval rating is at 30%; in other words, very low. Her countrymen accuse her of having been “absent” during the disaster caused by the tornado in April, which was poorly handled by her press anyway. She is playing it tight and her state is the first to “greet” Irene.

Michael Bloomberg, mayor since 2002, is an old fox, but he knows that his 45% approval rating is the lowest it has been in six years. At the end of 2010 he was severely criticized for his management of a blizzard that severely disrupted New York. He is going berserk over Irene and is everywhere. He just launched the evacuation of the low-lying areas of New York.

For the 44th President, this is the first hurricane of this magnitude, and he hadn’t been born when the last one of this force ravaged the region; that was in 1938. With the experience he acquired during the Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2010, he can launch federal resources with the head start that the weather forecasts have given him. This is an opportunity for him to consolidate and improve the rather good opinion – 44% – that Americans had of him for his presence and his “management” of the BP disaster during several months after the explosion in April of 2010. Will the Democrats win the battle against Irene?