THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

That tried and true Republican mantra easily describes Mitt the Shit's outlook on disaster response as noted in his remarks and his actions as Governor.

On Oct. 9, 2005, heavy rain storms caused the Green River to rise to historic levels and begin flooding into Greenfield, Mass. The flooding destroyed a trailer park and demolished swaths of low-income housing. Roads were impassable. The flood waters submerged the town's water treatment plant.

As the rain fell and the Green River rose, Greenfield's then-Mayor Christine Forgey tells The Huffington Post that she did not hear from Romney. About 75 people, including many retirees, lost their homes in the trailer park, she says. Still many more were displaced. Forgey says a resident opened up the high school and used it as a crisis shelter. A radio station launched a food and clothing drive and the Red Cross provided services...

The town could handle distributing donated shirts and juice. But Greenfield, with its population of 18,000, couldn't repair this level of loss, which had been estimated to exceed $1 million. Forgey said she needed the state government to respond and for Romney to declare an emergency. But for days, Greenfield residents were on their own, with limited outside help. "We really didn't get the response we were looking for," she says. "I had to declare a state of emergency ... We really needed help desperately, desperately."

On the first day, Forgey says she did not hear from Romney. Nor the second day. Nor the third.

Romney wasn't in Massachusetts when the flood hit, and the emergency did not alter his plans. The Associated Press reported at the time that the governor had been scheduled to speak to an economic club in North Carolina. "If the governor thought for one second he was needed here today, he would be there," a spokesperson told the AP.

When someone is caught in a disaster, the size of the disaster doesn't much matter but the response does. To the Mittwit, there was no great wealth involved so why should he bother. If he is President, we already know what his response would be to something like Sandy. He has dispatched two campaign busses, one each to Virginia & Pennsylvania without bothering to coordinate any efforts with the locals. He probably can't even be bothered to do a W flyover.