Blown Away: The Politics of Hurricane Irene
Daniel Berman highlights the political winners and losers from the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
29 Aug 2011, 18:51
The strength of Hurricane Irene
Both President Bushes suffered the ignominy of taking the blame for disasters they could have done little to prevent. For Bush Senior the nemesis was Hurricane Andrew which devastated large parts of the American south in the midst of the 1992 Presidential campaign, and which reinforced the impression, in spite of his promise that "Help is on the way”, that the President was disconnected from domestic affairs. A poll shortly after the Hurricane hit found that while voters approved of his response 54-27, they also believed that he was more concerned about the problems of people in Iraq and Bosnia than in Florida by a margin of 57-35. His son did not receive even this degree of indulgence with Hurricane Katrina, which has become blamed on his incompetence despite the limited influence he wielded over the sequence of events.
While its national impacts are often stated, Katrina also made the political careers of local officials and changed the destinies of whole states. In August of 2005, every statewide office but one in Louisiana was held by a Democrat, as were both houses of the legislature. Today every one of those is controlled by a Republican. It also changed the destinies of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, then little-known, and Kathleen Blanco, a popular southern Democrat on her way to an easy reelection victory who overnight became a symbol for ineffectualism and lack of leadership nationwide.
The general charge against Kathleen Blanco’s handling of the disaster - that she did nothing - has the misfortune of both being true and unfair. Disaster relief is a messy bureaucratic business in America, split between local officials, the National Guard which was then deployed in Iraq, and federal agencies. In Blanco’s case, she was paralyzed unless Washington acted, and the Bush Administration, for all the charges against then FEMA Director Michael Brown, could not move unless New Orleans’s Mayor Ray Nagin requested assistance. Superseding an African American Mayor of a majority African American city in the midst of a crisis would have been political suicide for the Democratic Blanco, and led to the same charges of racism Bush eventually faced. Nagin, despite sharing a party affiliation with Blanco was well-aware that her Lt. Governor, Mitch Landrieu wanted his job, and was also more than aware that Landrieu was the state’s emergency response coordinator. As disaster struck, Blanco was left with appearing at press conferences looking as helpless as she actually was as she tried to beg someone to do something.
The Governor who stood most clearly in the path of Hurricane Irene was Beverly Purdue, a Democrat from North Carolina who has had a rocky first term. Unlike Blanco, who was popular prior to the disaster, Purdue has consistently trailed in polls against potential Republican challengers, and the Republicans won the state legislature last year for the first time since 1898. Tom Jensen, the head of North Carolina based Public Policy Polling, noted a few weeks ago that she likely needed a “miracle” to win reelection. More than a few observers saw in Irene a potential “miracle” or at least a gamechanger, and rushed to embrace the idea of Purdue doing what Blanco failed to do.
Purdue, however, faces the same challenge that eventually did Blanco in. It was less Blanco’s own performance that undid her than the contrast between it and that of her neighbor, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Prior to the disaster, Barbour was a governor of middling popularity with his approval numbers general in the low-40s while Blanco enjoyed support of just under sixty percent of Louisianans. The Katrina disaster reversed these impressions. While Blanco was seen as blaming others and highlighting her own helplessness, Barbour provided a steady hand. While Blanco as panicked by the events as those fleeing New Orleans, Barbour did not lose his cool. In effect, Blanco’s real crime was one of impressions not substance. But impressions are important, since everyone else takes their cues from local and national leaders. When the time came to show a calm face, Blanco could only show panic.
Perdue’s Barbour may well be Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. A popular Conservative who won a surprisingly decisive victory in November of 2009, McDonnell has largely avoided the national spotlight since his response to Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Speech. Nonetheless, as a swingstate governor he is seen as a leading Republican Vice Presidential prospect, especially if Mitt Romney were to win the nomination. A strong performance in the face of Irene and its aftermath could catapult his career, and it was one reason even a day after the Hurricane had passed that he was still giving emergency briefings.
The greatest grandstander may be Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be yearning to imitate Rudy Giuliani’s steadiness under fire in the face of flooding in Manhattan. While flooding is far less dramatic than terrorism, Bloomberg will take what he can get. With no official party affiliation, and interest in a third party bid by him at an all time low, he lacks any real political direction. Any chance for press would be welcomed at this point.
As for President Obama at the national level, he is likely to face a lose-lose situation, a victim of the success Democrats have enjoyed in pinning the failures involved in the response to Katrina on George Bush. Disasters are unpredictable things, and in many ways neither George Bush nor Kathleen Blanco had much influence on the immediate response to Katrina. Nonetheless, Katrina created both the impression that the President can determine whether or not the response to a national disaster is successful, and that he has the obligation to do so. Bush’s real crime was to look insufficiently concerned by the crisis, and appearing indifferent to public fears and feelings is a failing more often associated with the cerebral Obama than with his predecessor. The President has already failed the first of the rigged tests by which his response will be evaluated by having the arrogance to be on vacation when disaster first appeared on the horizon. If nothing happens, he will receive little credit for what will have been seen as an overblown storm. But if things do go bad through no fault of his own, comparisons will be drawn with his predecessor’s performance during Katrina.
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