The president and his challenger have both put politics on hold for today, even as many in the media do the opposite:
President Barack Obama's campaign said Friday it was canceling the second of two campaign events following a deadly shooting at a movie theater in Colorado. He will address the shooting at a first event at 11:20 a.m. ET in Fort Myers and then return to the White House. Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Michelle Obama also both cancelled scheduled campaign events Friday. The campaign of presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney said it would continue with a planned political event.
Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul just sent out an email update to the press:
As I mentioned previously, Gov. Romney’s event will be to address the CO shootings.
Ann Romney’s events are cancelled.
We are pulling all ads in CO until further notice.
Conservative SuperPAC American Crossroads has also temporarily pulled its ads in Colorado. The Obama campaign is also taking down its negative ads in the state, but will keep positive spots on the air. As all of this swirls, Time magazine's national correspondent is arguing that Americans should politicize this shooting:
The telegenic schoolmarms we call pundits are all denouncing the politicization of the tragedy in Aurora, calling out the crass opportunists who would dare to use human suffering to advance their preferred public policy choices. I feel terrible about what happened in that movie theater, and I’m agnostic about gun control, but there is nothing wrong with politicizing tragedy. The talking heads don’t like it, because they think of politics as a silly game about who sang out of tune and whose words can be used against them and whose surrogate undercut whose message, but politics is about life and death and human suffering. At least that’s what it should be about.
I think there's a time for policy discussions. That moment is not now, which President Obama and Governor Romney seem to understand.
UPDATE - The Obama campaign is now pulling all of its ads in Colorado.
