Obama – Romney: The Importance of Sandy

This is a weekend of reflection for independent voters, who are going to decide the race for the White House. Barack Obama seems to have a slight advantage in key states, but Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s victory, says Mitt Romney’s going to win.

If there are decisive days, then they’re now — these last days, the ones preceding the vote on Nov. 6. Whether the scales of history will tilt on the side of a second term or on the side of a new tenant in the Oval Office will be decided now by independent voters in key states, who are going to have their say then, at their polling locations, if they haven’t already done so through early voting.

The latest polls show that Barack Obama is ahead in the swing states, particularly in Ohio. Here, the trend in his favor has been consolidated, thanks to his management of Sandy. “We leave nobody behind,” said the president, visiting one of the many urban centers in New Jersey devastated by the hurricane. It’s not just a promise from a government leader facing dozens of displaced persons (who were, according to the Drudge Report, in fact, abandoned and left on their own by the state authorities and government agencies).

It’s about something more: It’s an implicit message of reassurance for the middle class. Sandy’s passage, a few days before the appointment at the polls, not only caused death and destruction, but also dusted off a number of factors pertaining to the recent symbolic (but, in the end, even ancient) American history.

Once again, with his presence, with his being “on track,” he wanted to point out the difference between himself and George W. Bush’s management during Hurricane Katrina. Seeing how, in the past — according to critics — the commander in chief was absent and disinterested, now, by contrast, [president] number 44 wanted to show how he and his policies are instead taking care of the fates of those less fortunate, those who were safe in their homes before the arrival of a hurricane. (It was a natural phenomenon, but there are so many allusions to the storm caused by the economic crisis that destroyed the well-being of millions of middle-class families.)

The comparison between Obama-Sandy and Bush-Katrina by the president’s propaganda machine becomes an allusion — an indirect reference to the figure of Mitt Romney, the billionaire, who sees the 47 percent of citizens who’ll never vote for him as a weight (as he said in the now-famous video).

In addition, the passage of Sandy showed another theme of the campaign: the role of the federal government. As you know, the Republican candidate is against big government spending; he’s more inclined to reward private initiatives than public ones. Barack Obama has a completely different idea. For him — and these years in the White House have demonstrated it — the federal administration must be present in the lives of citizens. The management of the hurricane by the White House was (also) a great ad in favor of this idea of government.

It’s no coincidence that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Democratic independent, elected as a Republican candidate), decided to give his endorsement to Obama. And Chris Christie, although he’s the Republican governor of New Jersey, publicly praised Obama.

All items that may help independent voters make their decisions, especially in the ranks of the white middle class from Ohio who — more than those from Florida and Virginia — will be decisive in the outcome on the night of Nov. 6.

The outcome can’t be taken for granted. According to Real Clear Politics, the president is one and a half points away from his rival in Ohio, while the Republican candidate will probably take Florida and perhaps Virginia. According to Karl Rove, Mitt Romney will win 279 electoral votes, nine more than the minimum necessary to become president. The Obama team continues to repeat that without the victory in Ohio, the former governor of Massachusetts will be blocked from the road to Washington.

Five days and the situation will be decided. Five days.