document: THERE are growing signs that Hurricane Andrew , unwelcome as it was for the devastated inhabitants of Florida and Louisiana , may in the end do no harm to the re-election campaign of President George Bush . After a faltering and heavily criticised initial response to the disaster , both the president and his administration seem finally to be getting assistance to those rendered homeless and to businesses and farms that have been destroyed . In the process , Mr Bush has been able to call on the power of incumbency , the one asset denied his presidential rival , Mr Bill Clinton , who is to visit Florida today . This was brought home graphically by the president 's announcement that Homestead Air Force base in Florida - a major local employer virtually destroyed by Andrew - would be rebuilt . His poignant and brief address to the nation on Tuesday night , committing the government to pay the emergency relief costs and calling on Americans to contribute to the American Red Cross , also struck the right sort of note . It was only his tenth such televised speech from the Oval Office , itself a testimony to the gravity of the situation . As if to underline the political benefit to the president , a Harris poll conducted from August 26 to September 1 yesterday showed Mr Bush with 45 per cent support - behind Mr Clinton by just five points - reflecting a closer race than other recent surveys . With Mr Bush constantly in the headlines , Mr Clinton has been left on the sidelines , able to do little more than offer sympathy and sotto voce criticism of the president 's initial stumbling . First responses were certainly found wanting , specifically in the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -LRB- FEMA -RRB- set up by President Carter in 1979 to handle disasters such as Andrew . FEMA has , under the Republicans , become the ultimate patronage backwater , with , according to one congressional study , ten times as many political appointees as the typical arm of government . Its current head , Mr Wallace Stickney , is a New Hampshire political associate of Mr John Sununu , the former state governor and White House chief of staff . Contrary to its brief , but confirming a prescient recent report by a House committee that Mr Stickney was ` uninterested in substantive programmes ' , FEMA was caught completely unprepared by Andrew , resulting in unseemly disputes between state and federal authorities over who did what in bringing relief . However , the arrival in Florida of the military and the assignment of special responsibilities to Mr Andrew Card , the young and telegenic transportation secretary , is making a difference . Also increasingly evident is the hand of Mr James Baker , now ensconced at the White House . It was Mr Baker who reshuffled the president 's campaign schedule to make room for visits to the devastated areas and who pushed for a bigger role for the previously obscure Mr Card . It is also Mr Baker who is making the most of presidential powers to dispense largesse . Yesterday , Mr Bush flew to South Dakota to tell farmers of an expansion of the subsidised grains exports programme and then to the General Dynamics factory in Texas to announce an F-16 fighter sale to Taiwan . Both are , of course , intensely political actions . Both involve federal subsidies , as does relief for Andrew , that run counter to Mr Bush 's commitment to reduce the budget deficit . But both may be presented by a president as being in the national interest because they guarantee employment , which is what the election is largely about . US insurers expect to pay out around Dollars 500m in claims as a result of damage caused by Hurricane Andrew in Louisiana , the American Insurance Services Group said yesterday , Nikki Tait reports . This takes the insurance bill from the storm to around Dollars 8bn , making it the costliest disaster to hit the US .
extractive_keyphrases: hurricane andrew florida louisiana president george bush emergency relief disaster
abstractive_keyphrases: election campaign