Hurricane Sandy prompts Obama, Romney to cancel campaign appearances; Biden, Bill Clinton pick up the slack

David Axelrod: The campaign goes on — without the president (AP photo)

Hurricane Sandy has grounded President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but it hasn’t completely shut down the 2012 election campaign.

While the president canceled scheduled events in Wisconsin and Florida, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton are continuing to appear at events outside of the hurricane zone. The Obama campaign announced today that former Clinton has agreed to campaign this week in Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.Clinton and Biden are appearing jointly at an event in Youngstown, Ohio, today.

But aides say the president will remain in Washington to respond to the massive hurricane that is hovering off the East Coast.

“He has real responsibilities and those responsibilities come first,” chief Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod told reporters in a conference call. “This is obviously a very, very concerning situation.”

Campaign manager Jim Messina (AP photo)

Campaign manager Jim Messina said the political team is working under the assumption that the president will not hit the campaign trail for the foreseeable future.

“There’s a time for politics,” he said. “Right now we’ve got to focus on what we have to do on the storm.”

Messina said the campaign will continue to work to “turn out voters” for early voting. He said the president’s schedule would be decided “day by day” based on the storm’s impact.

“We’re still trying to figure out the president’s schedule,” he said. “His focus has to be on the storm and doing what he has to do there.”

Obama isn’t the only elected official forced off the campaign trail. Top Republican surrogates Chris Christie, New Jersey’s governor, and Bob McDonnell, the Virginia governor, are remaining in their home states to manage emergency response to the storm. On the Democratic side, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are sidelined from presidential politics.

Our Albany Times Union colleague Jimmy Vielkind reports:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had planned to campaign as a surrogate for Obama in the final days of the campaign, but said last week his plans were “delayed” by the storm, he said. Details were never publicly released, but Cuomo said he was “on standby” to stump for the president, possibly in Ohio or Virginia.

Romney today altered his own campaign schedule to steer clear of swing states in the path of the storm. Messina and Axelrod declined to say whether they’d like to see Romney suspend his own campaigning.

“I’m not going to tell Gov. Romney what to do,” said Axelrod. “And frankly I don’t think he’s going to ask for my opinion, either.”