It looks as if Mother Nature is about to grant President Obama one more opportunity to look presidential. The drawback is he will have to also have to affect the appearance of competence, an activity that has become something of a high wire act for him in recent months. It will be interesting to see how he balances the duties of the presidency with the demands of his campaign. Some weather forecasters are calling the unusual combination of a Hurricane Sandy and winter weather from the Midwest “Frankenstorm". If the storm lives up to predictions there could be extensive inland flooding, rain, snow, and downed power lines that may leave large areas of key battleground states Virginia and Pennsylvania without power for a week possibly making campaigning in those areas logistically impossible.
Should large portions of those two states be without power there will probably be clamoring by Democrats to postpone the elections but both states are under Republican control who would be loath to set such a historical precedent especially when it would advantage the opposition.
Surely FEMA will have all hands on deck but even the best efforts will result in grumbling, second guessing, and maybe even rioting. The president will be expected to visit hard hit areas which might play to his advantage but only if the damage is in battleground states. I suppose the worst case would be Obama would have to spend days in New York and Massachusetts bemoaning the crumbling infrastructure and the shortage cops and firemen and science teacher to teach the consequences of global warming while he inspects flooded basements. Even if the actual damage is minimal, as I hope is the case, Obama will be hard pressed to appear presidential without being partisan as he has already proven he cannot appear partisan without appearing unpresidential.
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