Will rising sea levels affect the election?

Sandy's coming, and the waters may flow up into the low-lying East Coast cities. If coastal cities flood and the people there — who are disproportionately Democratic — get distracted by their personal difficulties or find it hard to get to the polls, then the upstate folks — who may be more Republican — will have greater power to tip the state's electoral votes to Romney.

I'm thinking in particular of Pennsylvania, a swing state with 20 electoral votes, where Obama's been polling ahead. Sandy may hit Philadelphia hard. Look at the county-by-county results from the 2008 election. You can see that upstate, Republicans had the majority. Sandy's waters could suppress the coastal vote and leverage upstate power.

It was 4 years ago that Obama gave that grandiose "this was the moment" speech where he said "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow...." What irony if the rise of the oceans thwarts his reelection!

***

Going with the flow, Venice-style.