Matthew 6:5 – Romney’s Relief Rally

While President Obama made the decision to cancel scheduled campaign appearances this week in light of the disaster that Hurricane Sandy has brought to New York City, New Jersey, and a number of other states, including the key battleground state of Ohio, Mitt Romney just couldn’t pull the plug. Instead of doing the respectful thing and canceling his campaign appearance on Tuesday, just after Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, the Republican presidential candidate decided to re-brand his “Victory Rally” and call it “Relief Rally” instead.

The campaign decided that it would stage a photo op of Romney accepting food donations from supporters and loading up a truck with food after the event. But campaign staffers soon began to worry about the last minute nature of the call for donations, and worried that people wouldn’t show up with anything. To ensure that Romney wasn’t left without any donations and an empty truck, BuzzFeed reports that the campaign went out the night before the event and spent $5,000 at a local Wal-Mart. They bought up supplies like granola bars, canned food, and diapers. These items were then used as props to put on display while they waited for the real donations to show up. For their part, the campaign says that it donated relief supplies, but would not confirm an amount. What makes it all even more ridiculous is the fact that the Red Cross didn’t even want the items that Romney’s campaign collected. They’d have been better served with a $5,000 donations. Of course that wouldn’t be as nice of a photo op as standing by a table overflowing with canned goods.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full (Matt 6:5).“