Tropical Storm Sandy: The October Surprise No Political Party Ever Wants?

Even though Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney never mentioned climate change and global warming during all of their Presidential Debates, will Tropical Storm Sandy be the October Surprise both of them don’t want to face?

By: Ringo Bones

Almost all concerned groups in the United States and the rest of the world had been really concerned about both Democrats’ and Republicans’ silence over the issue of climate change and / or global warming for much of the 2012 US Presidential Race, and yet Tropical Storm Sandy – since dubbed as “Frankenstorm” by the US press – had put a damper on both political parties’ campaign tour schedules. Is Mother Nature now “forcing” both parties to have a serious discussion on the climate change / global warming issue?

As to appear not self-serving to their respective political parties, both Obama and Romney suspended their last minute political campaign tours scheduled in the US East Coast. Given that such natural disasters makes everyone think that it is always one more death too many, the US Democratic Party candidate and incumbent President Obama even chose not to appear in his planned rally in Orlando, Florida scheduled for Monday, October 29, 2012 even though it was Tropical Storm Sandy that closed shut the weather window over much of Florida to have allowed for the Air force One to safely land as hundreds of scheduled commercial flights in the US East Coast had already been cancelled. Though former Pres. Clinton appeared there as scheduled.

Given that probably all leading career politicians in America are now inextricably beholden by “Big Dirty Coal” and “Big Crude Oil” lobbyists and special interest groups – the issue of implementing policies that would curb America’s industrial output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by moving away from fossil-fuel burning will never be seriously discussed come election time. And even though this had been the very first time that the issue of global warming and / or climate change had glaringly never been discussed – as in the campaign period of the 2012 US Presidential Elections – nobody counted on Mother Nature to throw her very own October Surprise a week before the November elections.