Candidates weigh response to Sandy, forge ahead

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney edged back into active campaigning yesterday while President Barack Obama stayed close to the White House, rival candidates calibrating their responses to superstorm Sandy and the misery it has inflicted on millions.

In a close race with one week to run, both men appealed for donations -- for relief agencies rather than their own campaign treasuries.

"This is a tough time for millions of people. . . . But America is tougher," the president said during a brief visit to the American Red Cross, where he warned of more storm damage to come yet sought to reassure victims. He said he wanted "no bureaucracy, no red tape" to interfere with recovery, and suggested the military might be able to help in view of the enormity of the damage.

Romney, too, spoke of concern for storm victims. "A lot of people hurting this morning," he told several hundred supporters who were collecting supplies for victims of the storm. "We're looking for all the help we can get for all the families that need."

The race for the White House was hardly on hold.

Obama will travel to New Jersey to view damage from the storm and to thank first responders. The White House says Obama will join New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in viewing the damage. Christie is a Republican who has been an Obama critic. But Tuesday he praised Obama's leadership in dealing with the storm disaster.

"The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit," Christie told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I've been on the phone with him, like I said, Tuesday personally three times. He gave me his number at the White House, told me to call him if I need anything, and he absolutely means it. It's been very good working with the president."

Both campaigns pushed their supporters to vote early, and millions of them did.

In Florida, election officials said more than 2.2 million ballots had been cast by absentee mail-in ballots or in person as of Monday night, a total approaching 20 percent of the electorate.

Ubiquitous polls offered little clarity. Many showed a statistically insignificant margin for one candidate or the other, and individual battleground state surveys were close.

That made the storm-driven interlude even more delicate as the two campaigns sought to execute late-campaign strategies without appearing insensitive to the enormity of the loss in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere.