Haley Barbour: 'The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum'

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) says that the presidential election is now trending towards President Barack Obama because of Hurricane Sandy.

During a Sunday panel segment on State of the Union, CNN's Candy Crowley noted that the president had gotten a boost after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his endorsement in the aftermath of the super storm.

"He said that he thinks President Obama is better on the issue of climate change," CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash explained. "And that the hurricane -- the super storm -- was a reminder from his perspective of what's going on with the climate."

"But that wasn't the best thing that happened to Barack Obama this week," Barbour noted. "The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum. I don't think there's any question about it."

"Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficits and debt, Obamacare and energy is a good day for Barack Obama. You had a blackout -- you had a blackout on all of those issues that started about last Saturday and lasted until about yesterday. That was what was really good for Barack Obama."

Barbour added that Obama's proactive response to Hurricane Sandy didn't "help him a bit."

"What happened is that the news media absolutely blacked out any coverage of the issues that have been the issues of this campaign," the former governor insisted. "Nothing was stopping Romney's momentum. No matter what Obama did, he couldn't stop the momentum. This blackout -- and I'm not blaming the news media -- just all the news coverage was about everything but Obama's policies and the results of those policies."

Watch this video from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast Nov. 4, 2012.