Mother Nature kicked up more hot air than Gloria Allred and Donald Trump combined. When Hurricane Sandy made that hard left and whacked the Jersey Shore and beyond, all the yard cards and attack ads of Campaign 2012 suddenly seemed as meaningless as a roll of paper towels on Wall Street.
The magnitude of destruction is humbling. The death toll continues to rise. One again the hubris of mankind has been dealt a sobering reminder that our place on Earth is both tenuous and fleeting.
This massive catastrophe should give all of us pause to consider how many of our problems are really problems. I know I could whine less.
The winds of Sandy were not particularly strong by meteorological standards, yet they were powerful enough to deal our country a blow we'll be a long time shaking off.
Families and businesses barely hanging on after years of recession may never recover. Thousands of Americans from the Carolinas to New England are facing their personal Waterloo. The only bright spot from the latest "Storm of the Century" was the unexpected reprieve from campaign rhetoric.
With the finish line in sight, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were in full pedal-to-the-metal mode, then Mother Nature said, "Not so fast."
After flying around Florida looking for a safe place to hold a rally, the president withdrew to Washington to do his job — forcing Mitt Romney to cancel his scheduled campaign events to avoid looking like an uncaring opportunist.
The country got to experience a rare political calm before the Election Day storm.
It won't last.
The closing stretch of a presidential campaign creates its own highs and lows, mostly lows. Still, there was one ray of hope.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Romney man to the core, offered public praise to Obama for his immediate and helpful aid to the Garden State.
"I appreciate the president's outreach," said Christie, shocking political hacks on both sides of the aisle.
Obama haters reacted with shock, apparently incapable of believing the president can do anything right. Meanwhile some of the president's supporters act like a Republican governor would rather see his own people drown than say a kind word about Obama.
Cooperation equals treason.
While sun-drenched Southern Californians have the luxury of kicking around the X's and O's of hurricane politics, the folks who lost everything have bigger fish to fry — starting with the fish in what was once their bedrooms.
Not many storm victims are worrying today about Obama and Romney.
It won't take FEMA aid for the Democrats and Republicans to rebuild their mutual animosities, but just maybe the devastation of Hurricane Sandy will restore some sense of perspective to a political process run amok with raw emotion.
That would be the ultimate October surprise.
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Mother Nature kicked up more hot air than Gloria Allred and Donald Trump combined. When Hurricane Sandy made that hard left and whacked the Jersey Shore and beyond, all the yard cards and attack ads of Campaign 2012 suddenly seemed as meaningless as a roll of paper towels on Wall Street.
