MORNING MESSAGE: Stormy Weather
OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "First, there was Snowpocalypse. Then there was Snowmageddon. That was followed by Thundersnow. This summer brought the derecho. And most recently, we've been visited by Frankenstorm … Climate change is certainly a contributing factor to both the frequency and intensity of these events … while the president may be vulnerable to critics who say he hasn't had enough to say about climate change during the campaign, the record of what president Obama has done — or tried to do, faced with what was arguably the worst, most obstructionist, most unpopular do-nothing congress ever — makes it clear that if Obama hasn't said enough about climate change during the campaign, he's done several things to address climate change during his first term in office. "
Obama Leads Storm Response
President Obama and Gov. Christie displaying bipartisanship in wake of Sandy. NYT: "'I cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state,' he added during a brief news conference. He said it was 'my honor' to turn the podium over to the president and then stood just behind him, occasionally nodding and smiling at his jokes. For all the disruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy, the most unexpected may have been its unsettling effect on a presidential campaign winding into its final days. Perhaps nothing demonstrated the sudden upending of a political landscape years in the making so much as Mr. Christie’s unexpected and effusive praise of Mr. Obama. Only last week he dismissed the president as 'clutching for the light switch of leadership.'"
While Romney tones down. NYT: "Mr. Romney’s 20-minute stump speech in the final stretch is a case study in … modulation … Two words that nobody has heard over the past week: 'severely' or 'conservative.'"
Obama left FEMA "flush" with cash. NY Mag's Dan Amira: "You're not hearing a lot of complaints about FEMA these days … One reason is money: FEMA, often cash-strapped in recent history, is flush with enough funds to cover its Sandy relief efforts, and has thus been able to keep mayors and governors happy by providing whatever aid they need … In these waning days of the campaign, a big, splashy demonstration of efficient federal governance just might help Obama win that argument …"
"Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?" asks NYT's Nick Kristof: "Along with eight million others, the Kristofs have lost power, so I’ve been sending Twitter messages on my iPhone by candlelight — an odd juxtaposition that feels like a wake-up call. In the candlelit aftermath of a future hurricane, I’m guessing, we’ll look back at the silence about climate in the 2012 election and ask: 'What were they thinking?'"
Obama prepares return to campaign trail. CNN: "The president kicks off his multi-state swing Saturday, traveling to Mentor, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Dubuque, Iowa; and Bristow, Virginia. The following day, he'll visit Concord, New Hampshire; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Aurora, Colorado and Cincinnati, Ohio. Before he sets off on the weekend tour, Obama will give remarks at three events in Ohio on Friday and travel to Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado on Thursday."
Jeep Lie Weighs Romney Down
NYT edit board rips Romney for repeatedly lying: "Mr. Romney apparently plans to end his race as he began it: playing lowest-common-denominator politics, saying anything necessary to achieve power and blithely deceiving voters desperate for clarity and truth … What Mr. Romney cannot admit is that all this is a direct result of the government investment he would have rejected. It’s bad enough to be wrong on the policy. It takes an especially dishonest candidate to simply turn up the volume on a lie and keep repeating it."
Romney's lying forces auto companies to respond, notes TNR's Jon Cohn: "They tried hard to stay out of the presidential campaign. Although both companies were beneficiaries of the rescue package President Obama authorized in 2009, over the summer they started refusing requests to use their factories as venues for candidate events … But now officials from the companies are speaking out. And they are seriously pissed off."
"Romney’s ‘Plan’ To Help The Auto Industry: Massive Corporate Tax Breaks." ThinkProgress: "Writing on Romney’s campaign web site, ex-Chrysler chairman and Romney endorser Lee Iacocca has now laid out Romney’s plan to help the auto industry: it’s a massive corporate tax break that will make it easier for businesses to offshore their profits … Steven Rattner, Treasury’s lead adviser during the auto rescue, said on a conference call today that he would 'take issue' with the idea that auto companies need tax breaks. 'I’m not sure what Lee Iacocca is talking about,' Rattner said. 'The least of the industry’s problems has been taxes.'"
Jobs Number Still Coming Friday
BLS won't delay. NYT: "Economists expect the jobs figures to show slow, steady employment growth, the product of an anemic but persistent recovery, with the unemployment rate remaining about where it is in the coming months, and employers expected to add workers too slowly to pull the overall jobless rate down further."
Robert McElvaine compares Obama's handling of financial crisis to Hoover's, in NYT: "The government did not collect employment data during the Hoover years, but the best estimate indicates that unemployment soared from 3.1 percent when he took office [to 23.5%.] … Under Obama, unemployment continued to rise in the early months of his administration, clearly the result of the near-depression that he inherited, peaking at 10.0 percent in October 2009. The improvement since then has been painfully slow, but it has moved in the right direction, reaching 7.8 percent — a record vastly better than that in the last similar collapse … G.D.P. plummeted by more than 25 percent under Hoover; it has increased by almost 7 percent under Obama."
