Erstellt am: 3. 11. 2012 - 11:11 Uhr

Obama's Week

His late unexpected October Surprise was Mother Nature.

It's actually been a pretty interesting week for President Obama when you think about it. His October Surprise, the event that can change or influence the outcome of a US election, was Mother Nature herself. She threw the weight of the enormous Superstorm Sandy at the north-East coast, and in so-doing, gave the President a new pre-election narrative. He became the Comforter in Chief, and Obama the Clean-up Organiser.

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney had been talking theoretically about privatising the very department responsible for disaster management. All well and good, but suddenly that doesn't feel so right when pictures are being beamed into living rooms across America of those who have lost their homes and belongings. The story that's being driven home now is that government is very much needed in these situations. In fact, with this scale of devastation, a government with deep pockets is required to go into action immediately. This is not the time or place for private corporations whose only motive is to make a profit.

Obama has again learned from Bush's mistakes. Perceived inaction and hesitation in handling Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans gave Bush and the Republicans the label of a gaffe-prone administration completely incapable of doing the very thing it is designed to do - leap into action at a moment's notice. By contrast, Hurricane Sandy has been followed by images of President Obama hugging survivors, sympathizising with people who have lost their livelihoods, and showing he is in charge and can manage the crisis.

There's something else: out of almost nowhere, climate change has arrived on the election chattersphere. An issue that's been dead and buried ever since Al Gore looked up at the sky and wondered what was going wrong. Who wants to talk about global warming when businesses are closing and people are losing their jobs, and there's plenty of drilling to be done as people yearn for the days of cheap fuel. However, as of now, quite a lot of people up and down the east coast of America want to have a conversation about the frequency of large, devastating and unusual weather patterns. No prizes for guessing which of the candidates has a better track record of addressing these kinds of issues.

In fact, climate change may very well be something that Obama is willing to tackle if he wins on Tuesday night. He doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected in 2016, so he could go the extra mile in drafting policy that limits industrial pollution and pushes for sometimes unpopular but necessary renewable energy sources.

In the meantime, what is going to happen on Tuesday night? It's something I've obviously been asking a lot of people around Washington DC this week. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth. Actually, it's not my own original prediction. It comes from Stephen Hess, at Brookings, who follows campaigns very carefully and has been involved in many administrations over the years, but it's something I can go along with. He feels the momentum Romney has built up in recent weeks will mean that on election night, Romney will win the popular vote - that is to say more people will vote for him than for Obama, nationally. However, because of the strange system whereby it's the electoral college votes in each state that count, and every state has different numbers based on population, Obama will win at least the 270 electoral college votes he needs to put him back into the Whitehouse.

There was a situation like this after the long election night of 2000, when it was Gore vs Bush. Remember the hanging chads, the disputes, the Florida recount? Back then, Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the presidency. There would be a certain sweet irony for the Democrats if it happened the other way around this time, and because of the closeness of all the polls, it's a distinct possibility. Roll on Tuesday, it could be a very long night!

Listen to Saturday's Reality Check from the streets of Washington DC.