Bill Clinton told Mitt Romney in a phone call on Monday that he thought Hurricane Sandy helped President Barack Obama get re-elected because the storm offered him a chance to be presidential and look bipartisan.
Romney mentioned the half-hour conversation with Clinton during a conference call with some of his campaign donors that covered the former Massachusetts governor’s assessment of why he lost the presidential election to Obama, reported
ABC News.
“He said, ‘a week out I thought you were going to win,’” Romney said. “And, he said, ‘but the hurricane happened, and it gave the president a chance to be presidential, and to look bipartisan, and you know he got a little more momentum.’”
Pundits and politicians carefully made statements similar to Clinton’s after the election because of a general feeling among voters that Obama had put aside politics to do his job.
Exit polling by CBS News suggested that opinions of Obama improved after seeing how he handled preparations and post-storm response. A poll by the Pew Research Center just before the election also showed that 69 percent of all likely voters, and nearly half of Romney’s voters approved of Obama’s storm reaction as well.
Romney said Clinton was complimentary overall during their conversation, even saying how impressed he was with Ann Romney’s speech at the Republican National Convention.
“He also said that when he was watching Ann speak at the Republican convention, he decided he was tempted to join the Republican Party,” Romney said. “So he may have just been effusive with generous comments as he chatted.”
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