Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Climate change game change: Bloomberg endorses Obama

With each passing hour, it's looking more and more like Hurricane Sandy is the Cuban Missle Crisis of climate change -- and a political moment we'll long remember.

Much like Gov. Christie's post-storm embrace of President Obama, there's reasons to be cynical about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (and plenty of reasons to dislike him) but this is a stunning turn of events however you look at it:

In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result he was endorsing President Obama.

Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent in his third term leading New York City, has been sharply critical of both Mr. Obama, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, the president's Republican rival, saying that both men have failed to candidly confront the problems afflicting the nation. But he said he had decided over the past several days that Mr. Obama was the best candidate to tackle the global climate change that the mayor believes contributed to the violent storm, which took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars in damage.

"The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of next Tuesday's presidential election into sharp relief," Mr. Bloomberg wrote in an editorial for Bloomberg View.

"Our climate is changing," he wrote. "And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be — given the devastation it is wreaking — should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."

The other interesting thing, and a sharp twist of the political knife to Mitt Romney's back, is that Bloomberg said he could have endorsed '03 Romney. Probably a lot of folks could have -- more proof that the Tea Party and talk radio may have destroyed the Grand Old Party for a long, long time.