Please take a look at this piece of
genius by the Editorial Page editor of the New York Times, David Firestone:
On a day when millions of Americans face serious hardship as they recover from Hurricane Sandy’s damage, Mitt Romney clearly decided it would be crass to campaign in a conventional way. So he turned a scheduled rally in Kettering, Ohio, this morning into a “storm relief event,” and posed before piles of donated canned goods.
Firestone described how Romney called these donations "the American way," and offered sincere praise for those who took the time to contribute. But Firestone dug deep into Romney's take on the broader issue:
But the real “American way” is quite different. Most disaster agencies don’t want donated goods; they need cash. And in the modern era, the most important cash comes from taking people’s tax dollars and distributing them in the form of federal aid to communities hard-hit by a disaster. Because that involves the federal government, it is tainted in the minds of Mr. Romney and his party. It is compulsory, and thus not an offering of the heart.
Firestone hit Romney on his call to cut domestic, discretionary spending, to de-centralize federal efforts to deal with emergencies like the one caused by Sandy, and for his praise for the Ryan budget, with its truly draconian cuts.
The piece closed with this humdinger, in which Firestone skewers Romney's view of the role of government as well as his slippery campaign style.
Mr. Romney ignored all questions this morning about his plans for federal emergency management. It’s probably embarrassing to admit those plans consist largely of collecting soup cans.
Hear, hear.
PS-Please check out my new book Obama's America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity, published last month by Potomac Books, where I discuss these issues in greater detail. You can read a review by DailyKos's own Greg Dworkin here.