"For GOP, storm's timing makes it harder to be anti-government" at the LA Times

[applegrove]

For GOP, storm's timing makes it harder to be anti-government

By Mark Z. Barabak and Paul West, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-convention-analysis-20120828,0,3742541.story

"SNIP........................................

The Obama administration Monday issued a detailed accounting of preparations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — more than 1 million liters of drinking water, 436,000 meals, 2,000 cots, 4,600 blankets and other supplies stocked in warehouses in Alabama and Florida — and made it known that the president was being briefed and had called Gulf Coast governors, all Republicans.

For all their budget-cutting ardor, most Republicans do not openly advocate the closure of, say, the National Hurricane Center or FEMA, though some have demanded that spending for disaster relief be offset by cuts elsewhere. But the budgets that Romney and Paul D. Ryan have advocated would force huge reductions in domestic programs, which would include those areas. The danger for them is that the response to Isaac will show government as less a problem than a solution.

And then there are what political professionals call the "optics."

A Romney strategist envisioned an Obama tour of the Gulf Coast — after the storm passes, of course — and said the image of the president as consoler in chief would be "hard to beat. You don't beat it."

........................................SNIP"