Politics
Election 2012: Obama visits New Jersey in Hurricane Sandy aftermath, Romney back on campaign trail
The president’s actions have forced Romney to make tough choices. The former Massachusetts governor must show respect for the superstorm’s casualties, but he can ill afford to waste a minute of campaign time, with the election six days away.
After tamping down his partisan tone Tuesday at an Ohio event that emphasized disaster relief, Romney returned to a robust campaign message in events in Florida, the largest competitive state.
Sandy largely spared Florida.
“This is quite a time for the country. We’re going through trauma in a major part of the country, the kind of trauma you’ve experienced here in Florida more than once,” Romney said, and he encouraged donations to the Red Cross. He then launched into a critique of Obama’s leadership in tough economic times and said he would do better.
“I don’t just talk about change. I actually have a plan to execute change and make it happen,” Romney said.
Romney’s shifting stances on a number of key issues have haunted his campaign. After the superstorm battered the East Coast, Romney was sounding far more supportive of federal government assistance to states ravaged by the natural disaster. Only last year, as Romney leaned to the right while battling for the Republican nomination, he appeared to suggest in a debate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be shuttered and its responsibilities left to the states.
He sounded a different message on Wednesday.
