Back in August of 1992 I was driving back to Denver from a relaxing visit to Vail - descending through the foothills into a driving snow flurry - listening to the radio reports of Hurricane Andrew. During the prior week I had been attending a conference in Denver and recall watching Pat Buchanan throw red meat at the convention where G.H.W. Bush was nominated for a second term. As I drove and heard the reports of the hurricane's damage - I turned to my (then) wife and said "I hope Bush isn't tone deaf on this one". As it turned out he was - and the image of incompetence that was displayed, whether accurate or not, did significant damage to his re-election effort.
The scene which played out on CNN which I recall most vividly was of the Dade County Emergency Services Director - a woman whose name I cannot recall. About 5 days after the hurricane landed she was being interviewed on television and was distraught to the point of having a virtual breakdown on television. The interpretation of that event was "Bush doesn't care". I interpreted that event as "Maybe Dade County should have chosen a more capable person to be their Emergency Services Director. By definition - the only time she was really going to be needed was under great stress and in times of crisis - and to break down like that was prima facie evidence she was not the right choice." In any event - the press played this incident with great sympathy and the subtext was that Bush was either indifferent or incompetent.
I think G.W. Bush understood this object lesson after his father's re-election campaign. Certainly Bill Clinton did. Once in office he appointed James Lee Witt and made FEMA into an effective machine.
Karl Rove gets this - so I'm confident the response will be a good one. However - the lesson has to be this: Never underestimate the willingness of the press or your political rivals to turn a natural disaster into a partisan weapon.
I think it's time to go watch a "CREAMED" station an get some lies. It's time for Brit Hume and the "Special Report"
The rest, as they say, is history, and Clinton was able to step in and trash Bush as "uncaring." As far as Chiles goes, there were some questions asked about what took him so long, but he just mouthed a bunch of BS about not knowing the scope of the disaster or some such nonsense, and of course no one pressed him on it. He accomplished his mission, you see, and went on to defeat Jeb Bush in the 1994 governor's race, in large part due to a last-minute phone campaign to Florida senior citizens telling them that Bush was going to cut off their Medicare. Don't be fooled for a second about the myth-making surrounding Chiles, and there is a lot of it down here in Florida. He was as amoral and backstabbing a political hack as they come.