Obama, Romney put aside campaign for storm relief
WASHINGTON (Reuters) US President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday briefly put aside their fierce battle for the White House, as they avoided politics to focus on relief efforts after mammoth storm Sandy left millions of Americans struggling to recover.
With a week left in a deadlocked election race, Obama canceled campaign trips planned for Tuesday and today to stay in Washington and supervise storm recovery, while Romney held a storm relief event in the swing state of Ohio but ducked most political talk.
The campaign truce was likely to be short-lived.
Romney planned to hit the trail again for rallies in Florida today, and Romney’s running mate, US Representative Paul Ryan, and Vice President Joe Biden also added new planned campaign stops as the race heads to a tense finish on Nov. 6.
Obama will visit New Jersey, which along with New York City bore the brunt of the storm, although he was expected to return to campaigning on Thursday for the final sprint to Election Day.
Both candidates have been forced to walk a delicate line, trying to avoid appearing insensitive or crassly political after Sandy inflicted heavy property damage, killed at least 30 people and left millions on the eastern seaboard without power.
Obama held a video conference at the White House on Tuesday with top members of his emergency team and spoke to governors and other officials in storm-damaged areas before visiting the national headquarters of the American Red Cross, where he warned that the risks were “not yet over.”
The president’s crisis leadership got an endorsement from a surprising source New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and prominent Romney backer who said Obama should get credit for expediting federal aid to the state.