Bush calls on power to dispense largesse: Hurricane's aid to the president
THERE are growing signs that Hurricane Andrew, unwelcome as it was for the devastated inhabitants of Florida and Louisiana, may in the end do no harm to the re-election campaign of President George Bush. After a faltering and heavily criticised initial response to the disaster, both the president and his administration seem finally to be getting assistance to those rendered homeless and to businesses and farms that have been destroyed. In the process, Mr Bush has been able to call on the power of incumbency, the one asset denied his presidential rival, Mr Bill Clinton, who is to visit Florida today. This was brought home graphically by the president's announcement that Homestead Air Force base in Florida - a major local employer virtually destroyed by Andrew  - would be rebuilt. His poignant and brief address to the nation on Tuesday night, committing the government to pay the emergency relief costs and calling on Americans to contribute to the American Red Cross, also struck the right sort of note. It was only his tenth such televised speech from the Oval Office, itself a testimony to the gravity of the situation. As if to underline the political benefit to the president, a Harris poll conducted from August 26 to September 1 yesterday showed Mr Bush with 45 per cent support - behind Mr Clinton by just five points - reflecting a closer race than other recent surveys. With Mr Bush constantly in the headlines, Mr Clinton has been left on the sidelines, able to do little more than offer sympathy and sotto voce criticism of the president's initial stumbling. First responses were certainly found wanting, specifically in the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) set up by President Carter in 1979 to handle disasters such as Andrew. FEMA has, under the Republicans, become the ultimate patronage backwater, with, according to one congressional study, ten times as many political appointees as the typical arm of government. Its current head, Mr Wallace Stickney, is a New Hampshire political associate of Mr John Sununu, the former state governor and White House chief of staff. Contrary to its brief, but confirming a prescient recent report by a House committee that Mr Stickney was 'uninterested in substantive programmes', FEMA was caught completely unprepared by Andrew, resulting in unseemly disputes between state and federal authorities over who did what in bringing relief. However, the arrival in Florida of the military and the assignment of special responsibilities to Mr Andrew Card, the young and telegenic transportation secretary, is making a difference. Also increasingly evident is the hand of Mr James Baker, now ensconced at the White House. It was Mr Baker who reshuffled the president's campaign schedule to make room for visits to the devastated areas and who pushed for a bigger role for the previously obscure Mr Card. It is also Mr Baker who is making the most of presidential powers to dispense largesse. Yesterday, Mr Bush flew to South Dakota to tell farmers of an expansion of the subsidised grains exports programme and then to the General Dynamics factory in Texas to announce an F-16 fighter sale to Taiwan. Both are, of course, intensely political actions. Both involve federal subsidies, as does relief for Andrew, that run counter to Mr Bush's commitment to reduce the budget deficit. But both may be presented by a president as being in the national interest because they guarantee employment, which is what the election is largely about. US insurers expect to pay out around Dollars 500m in claims as a result of damage caused by Hurricane Andrew in Louisiana, the American Insurance Services Group said yesterday, Nikki Tait reports. This takes the insurance bill from the storm to around Dollars 8bn, making it the costliest disaster to hit the US.
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