By HUGO ODIOGOR

When Super Storm Sandy decided to unleash its fury on the East Coast of America, it was  a nightmare that Republican Party Candidate, Mitt Romney would have loved to avoid or possibly pray against is manifestation. But  the Hurricane came and may have put “San San” in his ambition to become the 45th President of the United States of America, come November 6, 2012.

Buoyed by the resurgence of  his impressive performance at the first presidential debate, Romney found a voice and a message. The poor state of the economy became his mantra. He waxed stronger in opinion polls and in the media. He became the best the next president in the eye of the media.

Issues bordering on Romney’s failure to fully disclose his tax return, his flip flops on issues, and changing from his ideological base as a conservative to a moderate, were pushed aside by the media, to the credit of the Romney campaign which made economy the number one issue in the election.

Despite  the fact that President Obama preformed better in the two subsequent debates, the momentum remained with Romney as we continued to close in on the president in the battle ground states of Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania etc.

But  the unexpected happened: Hurricane sandy became the Deux Ex-Machina that may have shattered Romney’s dream and perhaps strengthened President’s Obama’s faltering re-election chances.

This intervention of nature according to Colorado based Nigerian, Jossy Adam, is not good news for the Republican party candidate because it gave President Obama, the most needed opportunity to use his power of incumbency but the more importantly, those who would vote on November 6, 2012, would want to be sure that they are not gambling with their future.

The case for continuity has become a priority. The desire for federal support to the victims of Hurricane Sandy has equally become urgent and these have been playing in favour of President Obama.

Post Hurricane scenario

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney suspended their campaign events to attend to the Hurricane Sandy’s visit. By the time they resumed last Thursday the former Governor of Massachusetts seemed to have lost the momentum he built from the first debate.

First, the Governor of New Jersey, Mr. Chris Christie, who was one of Obama’s vitriolic critic became one of the first persons to commend President Obama for the prompt and efficient handling of the crisis created by Hurricane Sandy.

The GOP candidate, Romney became constrained in his criticism of President Obama, who as the Commander-in-chief, has been saddled with managing the Sandy catastrophe which claimed 88 lives, a death toll far greater than what was lost in Benghazi. Romney has found himself on a bad spot  as  majority of the victims would  need federal government bail out, to be able to recover from their losses.

Romney earlier said 47% of Americans are victims of the economic system who depend on government subsidy to survive. Now those who suffered from the impact of Hurricane Sandy would need government support for insurance companies, to be able to replace their cars, homes create new job or restart their businesses, rebuild infrastructures

Romney is hard put to advocate for federal bail out which he has criticized in the past especially when it was extended to auto companies and financial institutions that were hit by the financial meltdown in 2008.

Some of the critical post Hurricane Sandy campaign issues have centred on prevailing reality and other than ideological ideals which was the dominant position of the two main candidates. Americans affected by the disaster want immediate support to pull through President Obama has changed from the defensive campaign, to providing messages of hope as well as testimonials of his accomplishments in the past four years.

Economic rebound

More bad news came for Mitt Romney when the October job figures for the month of October was released on Friday by the Labour Department. The GOP candidate has made creation of jobs and revamping the economy the cardinal focus of his  attack on the Obama administration. The Labour Department report shows that 171,000 new jobs were created which was higher than the 125,00 new jobs expected by economists. Most of the jobs came from the private sector.

The report has come handy for President Obama who swiftly told his supporters that more than 4 million jobs were created since 2009 economic decline.

The report also indicated a drop in unemployment rate to below 8%. The report also revised the September figures upwards from 114,000 new jobs to 148,000. Given that fact that the auto companies are doing great, the housing sector is rebounding all these have made many observer to wonder whether Hurricane Sandy is a democrat.

Back in April 2012, U.S Immigration Lawyer, McAnthoney Ndukaeze unequivocally said Mitt Romney will win the nomination for Republican Party, but when it comes tom winning the presidential election against Barack Obama, “I can tell you that Romney will not be president of the United States of America.”