Given the circumstances at the time, everyone was clamoring for the Feds to do something to protect them. The TSA is likely NOT what the public had in mind. Anyone who thinks the TSA has made them safer in the real sense of the word is kidding themselves. The TSA is an expensive, ineffective, attempt to protect air travelers. Yet, a simply knock on the head, grab that employee’s strip card, use it to walk through the employee gate and a terrorist has full access to the tarmac and everything on it. In terms of opportunity costs, the TSA is one of the most expensive, worthless, agencies the Federal gov’t ever foisted on the public.
Which is why neither Romney nor Obama will ever do away with it.
Seriously, if Romney tried to do away with the TSA he'd be overwhelmed by charges that he's leaving the traveling public open to terrorist attacks. He doesn't have the spine to do that.