CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Sept. 1, 2008 – 12:39 a.m.
Gustav Offers Perils, Opportunities
By David Nather, CQ Staff
Faced with the awful prospect of another catastrophic storm in the Gulf Coast just as their convention gets under way, Republicans are trying their best to turn a potential embarrassment into an opportunity for political redemption.
Three years ago, the nation watched as the federal government, run by a Republican president and staffed with GOP appointees, stumbled through its response to Hurricane Katrina.
And in a speech in New Orleans this June, Sen. John McCain criticized the Katrina fiasco as a way of distancing himself from the record of President Bush.
“When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government,” McCain said.
McCain added that the government’s “disgraceful failure” to provide emergency services “exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities.”
And now — with Hurricane Gustav expected to strike the Gulf Coast just three days before McCain was scheduled to accept the Republican presidential nomination in St. Paul — the Arizona senator is trying to make sure that his party doesn’t blow the opportunity to prove it cares about human suffering.
In announcing the convention will be stripped down to bare-bones essentials on Monday — and will set its schedule day by day after that — McCain is clamping down on his party, determined to steer it away from any celebrating that could be seen as politically tone-deaf. Instead, he’s turning it into the kind of event that might even bolster a theme that has been central to his political life: Putting the needs of country ahead of self-interest.
“We have to do away with our party politics and act as Americans,” McCain said Sunday. “It’s time to open our hearts, our efforts, our wallets, our concern, our care for those American citizens who are now under the shadow and the probability of a natural disaster.”
His campaign manager, Rick Davis, suggested that convention officials might ask delegates and other participants to raise money for anyone who suffers losses because of the storm. And he left open the possibility that McCain might not even appear at the convention.
“Obviously, he would like to be here,” Davis said. “But obviously, we’re not going to do anything that would be deemed inappropriate in this kind of situation.”
The new plan for Monday’s session calls for only those actions that Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan calls “essentials”: the call to order, adopting the report of the credentials committee, adopting the rules, electing officers and adopting the platform.
As for the rest of the week, Davis said, the only truly essential activity that has to take place at some point is the roll call vote to make McCain the official presidential nominee and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska the official vice presidential nominee.
Handling the Storm
Gustav Offers Perils, Opportunities
The Republicans might not have had a choice anyway. Had they gone ahead with the full convention plan, they could have been reduced to a poorly timed sideshow while all the cable news networks covered the natural disaster in progress.
But by trimming their convention and giving it a somber tone, the party hopes to be able to make the best of a potential disaster and maybe even earn credit from the public for showing sensitivity to those in harm’s way.
“Good handling of the storm presents just as much of an opportunity as a problem for Republicans,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “If Republican governors handle it well, and the convention handles it well, it could in some ways really reduce the anger and bitterness over the handling of Katrina.”
It’s not just the convention activities that are on the line, but the official response as well.
McCain pointedly said, “I have every expectation we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated” — a theme echoed by other Republicans. Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said he expects the federal government will respond more effectively to Gustav than to Katrina, noting that he saw improvements in its response to flooding in Minnesota a year ago.
“We’ve learned from Katrina. In that sense, it’s a plus,” Coleman said. “But this is a very serious storm. Our hearts are with all the people who are in its path. We will be sending a very clear message at this convention that it’s country first, not politics first.”
Indeed, McCain’s “country first” theme seemed to be the talking point of the day, echoed almost word for word by Republican officials throughout St. Paul — showing the extent to which he has already taken over the party’s leadership. And they quickly adopted his call to help those in the storm’s path. The Republican National Committee even added a link to its home page — “Hurricane Gustav: How You Can Help” — that takes users to the Red Cross Web site.
Unexpected Opportunity
In some ways, the storm is giving McCain an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate how he would change the party and distance it from the Bush years. Before Gustav set its path for the Gulf Coast, McCain was facing the uncomfortable situation of having Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney address the convention Monday night — exactly the kind of image Democrats would have loved to use to tie McCain to Bush.
“Having Bush and Cheney give speeches at the convention where McCain is to be nominated is not a great visual,” said Mickey Edwards, a former GOP congressman from Oklahoma and author of “Reclaiming Conservatism,” a book that criticizes the direction the conservative movement has taken during the Bush years.
Now, neither will speak at the convention, and McCain can set up a contrast between the Bush administration’s response to Katrina and the way his Republican Party responds to Gustav.
“Nothing good is going to happen to John McCain unless he can say, ‘I am not George Bush,’” Edwards said. “He has the opportunity to do that now.”
Ayres, however, said McCain has already made a clean break from the administration and is simply reinforcing that message with the public.
Gustav Offers Perils, Opportunities
“He is his own man, he is going to chart his own course, and he is going to chart a different course from the previous administration,” Ayres said. “This is McCain’s convention now.”
John M. Donnelly contributed to this story.
Comments
My thinking is that the real embarassment the republicans are trying to escape from this week is the success of the democratic convention of last week. There's no way they would top it and using the storm as an excuse to tone down is just shows how they are floundering with their pick for President and the ineptness of McBush in his choice of a running mate.
Is there a legislative context that demonstrates how McCain and the Republicans stand on the importance of government in cases of natural disaster? National Weather Service, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, etc....Do they think that these government agencies and their related programs have an important role to play just in this case coinciding with their convention? Where have they stood on funding for such work in the past? What's the history of this? Otherwise, great work!
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