The storm that blew away a President.

It is a fairly popular misconception that people, parties or presidential candidates win elections. But this isn’t true. History demonstrates that where Western democracies are concerned, it is regimes who lose power, lose support and lose the confidence of the people. The Soviet Union collapsed when there was no longer a single soul capable of wielding power or making any practical use of the available resources of the state. Mrs Thatcher’s conservative government in the hands of her heir, John Major, collapsed spectacularly when the corruption, the immorality and the straight forward arrogant stupidity left them exposed to the mob.

George W Bush was a man who won, because Al Gore was so stupid and arrogant that he firstly wasn’t prepared to take advantage of the democratic voters affinity for Bill Clinton and secondly that he was incapable of making his mind up. What were the democrats thinking supporting a preppy, money lawyer whose writings famously could not be distinguished from the Unabomber? What were the Democrats thinking when they put up that other guy against George? How could they imagine that the floating majority of the electorate would be engaged to vote for such a candidate? When the election was over, what were the democrats thinking pursuing him over the war in Iraq? Why did those people camped outside his ranch imagine for a single second that they were doing anything other than make the opposition to the war and the President appear to be the constituency of the tired old hippies and the loony left?

How unfortunate it is then that Hurricanes are neither white or middle class. How unfortunate it is that almost everyone who was against George seemed to have forgotten that he was the accidental President, that he appeared to be the sort of man who didn’t respond terribly well in crisis, that he seemed to be the sort of man who had, as a result of the 9 11 attack, greatness thrust upon him.

How very unfortunate.

Sometime in the very near future a report will be published and it will condemn a collection of bumbling inadequate officials and politicians and show that the original evacuation order was too little to late and that no provision was made to take care of anyone who wasn’t white middle class with lots of insurance. It will show that in order to conceal the completely inadequate response of the wealthiest nation on Earth, to a natural disaster, the looters were held to blame. It will show that while George appeared on television rambling on about his pride, his gratitude and organisations of faith, two or possibly three helicopters were parked behind him doing nothing. It will ask the question how come the US government can bomb the crap out of Baghdad, but it can’t maintain civil order and democratic civilisation in the Mississippi? It will ask the same questions that all of those predominantly non white non middle class people left in New Orleans are asking themselves right now. Who is in charge here and where is our leader?

Add to this, oil at $70 a barrel gas at §3-4 a (US) gallon and a fairly liberal US media who are this very moment gathering stories of such heart rending suffering and tragedy that people will talk about nothing else for the next few months. Every single person who feels that they have had a rough deal in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina will tell at least twenty other people of their negative experience and the storm of public opinion will roll on as the shame and astonishment that the US appears to respond to a natural disaster on a par less than that of a developing nation.

It only took one word from Spiro Agnew, “deadbeats” to turn a majority of Americans against the Vietnam War. In the next few weeks a few more Americans than usual could suddenly find themselves sharing an opinion with Michael Moore.

The effect of all this will be to tarnish the President in a way that no anti war campaign could. It exposes his southern political associates as either being incapable of running a state or defending civilisation or both. It exposes him as someone lacking the necessary abilities of a leader of a nation, and clearly unable or unwilling to use the power available to the chief executive to respond faster. None of this needs to be true. It simply has to look like that.

The mud which is only just beginning to fly in the Mississippi will have sufficient momentum to fly all the way to Washington and the Whitehouse and that is where it will stick. The modern electorate is perfectly capable of overlooking the many foibles and human failings that a president may present to them as long as they continue to perceive him and his administration as being in charge, as being either a Great President, a steady hand or an inspired man. What they cannot tolerate, no matter what shade political of opinion they might favour is a president who seems unable to lead and to be a leader. The political fallout from the disaster in Mississippi may turn out to be a great deal more than the storm that blew away a presidency.