Romney Attempts To Use Hurricane For Campaign, Impede Emergency Response

Blogger John Aravosis is detailing the Romney campaign’s attempts to use Hurricane Sandy to the benefit of their campaign, which is directly from their campaign playbook. The Romney campaign is in a pickle, since the 24/7 news media is now focused on the Hurricane and not on Romney’s mythical “momentum.”

Early this morning, Aravosis reported:

Team Romney’s token “hurricane relief” effort is making things worse for disaster relief agencies is yet another example of how everything Mitt Romney touches – even disasters – end up a disaster.

 

Romney campaign will load storm relief supplies into Romney bus in Arlington Va today an will collect supplies at all VA victory offices

— Emily Friedman (@EmilyABC) October 28, 2012

 

All well and good except, of course, that it’s the opposite of what disaster relief experts advise you to do.  In fact, they warn that such efforts actually “hinder” relief.  Had the Romney campaign bothered reading the Red Cross Web site to see WHAT was needed, or even simply asked someone at the Red Cross,they’d have known this.

And I quote from the Red Cross Web site:

Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resourcesof money, time, and personnel.

Aravosis, in a new report, adds that Romney is “now in a full-blown Hurricane Sandy recovery mode, coordinating relief efforts with GOP governors, even though it’s not entirely clear what Romney knows about disaster relief, or how a presidential candidate who’s not in office can even offer any assistant at all, other than some of millions as a donation to the Red Cross.”

Romney has found that disaster “opportunity” he was looking for throughout the entire campaign.

Mitt Romney continues to interfere with Hurricane Sandy response in an effort to use Sandy as an “opportunity” to bolster his presidential bona fides.

.@andreamsaul: Gov. Romney has also been in touch with [VA] Governors Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie about storm preparation

Image: NASA