HURRICANE Gustav forced John McCain to rewrite carefully laid plans for the Republican convention and order a sharply abbreviated opening session for Monday.
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had already canceled speeches planned for the Republicans' gala opening that was to conclude with McCain formally accepting the party nomination Thursday night. Bush was headed to Texas to be ne
ar emergency operations.
"This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans," McCain said in St. Louis on Sunday as fellow Republicans converged on their convention city of St. Paul, Minnesota, 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) up the Mississippi River from where Gustav was bearing down on the US Gulf coast.
The storm, combined with a toned-down political convention, could deny McCain four days of intense, national news coverage that generally brings a boost in the polls. Democratic rival Barack Obama's poll numbers rose after what was generally regarded as a successful Democratic National Convention last week.
But in scaling down the convention and focusing on the storm, McCain can also highlight leadership skills and provide a contrast to Bush's slow response to Hurricane Katrina – at a time that Democrats are trying to cast McCain as a continuation of the Bush presidency.
Bush and Cheney's decisions to cancel their speeches may not hurt McCain as he seeks to distance himself from an unpopular administration.
The hasty reordering of an event months in the planning was
unprecedented, affecting not only the program on the podium but fundraising, partying and other political activity that unfolds around the edges of a national political convention.
McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis said the party would decide how to proceed with plans for the rest of the four-day gathering on a day-to-day basis, as officials assess the damage done by the massive hurricane that was expected to come ashore Monday. New Orleans has only partially recovered from the wicked hit it took three years ago from Hurricane Katrina.
Clearly remembering the permanent blot left on the Bush administration by its botched handling of Katrina, McCain and his campaign were taking no chances that McCain's bid for the presidency would be caught in the same trap.
"I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated," McCain said.
Davis told reporters inside the convention hall that the two-hour opening program on Monday would be "business only and will refrain from political rhetoric." As part of the convention's opening night, first lady Laura Bush and McCain's wife, Cindy, would speak from the podium and describe ways to help victims of the storm, officials said.
Democrats turned their attention to the storm as well. Obama offered to tap his huge network of donors and volunteers to help any victims of Gustav.
"I think we can activate an e-mail list of a couple of million people who want to give back," Obama told reporters after campaigning in Lima, Ohio.
Obama said he might visit storm-damaged areas once "things have settled down" because he did not want to draw resources away from emergency workers.
Obama's Democratic operatives, in town to staff an aggressive "war room" operation designed to attack Republicans during their festivities, set aside activities for Monday.
Democrats also shelved a "More of the Same" rally tying McCain to Bush that was to have featured hundreds of protesters.
The Democratic effort follows an aggressive week by Republican operatives in Denver. They successfully thrust themselves into the convention story line by introducing new television ads daily, circulating top Republican officeholders among cable and network news outlets and bombarding reporters with quick reaction to each evening's convention program.
Democrats say they will be ready to restart the operation when the convention returns to normal.
The formal business of the convention includes nominating McCain for president and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate on Wednesday. McCain's acceptance speech, set for prime time on Thursday evening, is among the most important convention events as he hopes to energize Republicans and set out on the final lap of the campaign.
McCain, his wife, Cindy, and Palin toured the emergency management center in Mississippi, a state that could be hit hard by the approaching hurricane.
"No matter what we are – Republican or Democratic – America needs us to do what all Americans have always done in times of disaster and challenge," McCain told reporters there.
The suspense over Gustav has temporarily taken the spotlight off Palin. She is seen as a maverick reformer in geographically huge but sparsely populated Alaska, is deeply conservative and avidly opposed to abortion – a key issue for the Republican evangelical base. The 44-year-old carried the last of her five children to term in April knowing the fetus had Down syndrome.
The risks for McCain, however, lay in Palin's lack of experience. She is in her first term as Alaska's governor, having served before that as mayor of Wasilla, a small community of about 6,500 north of Anchorage. McCain has consistently attacked the experience of the 47-year-old Obama, a first-term US senator who previously served eight years in the Illinois state legislature.
