Gustav upstages GOP

Trying to stay above politics, McCain cancels all but essential convention activities

ST. PAUL, MINN. -- Sen. John McCain and his advisers decided Sunday to halt all but the most essential activities for the Republican National Convention today, sacrificing a major televised platform for his political message as McCain seeks to demonstrate a forceful response to the threat of Hurricane Gustav.

With Gustav expected to hit the Gulf Coast today, McCain and his team spoke by phone Sunday and quickly decided to cancel much of the first day of the convention. McCain advisers said the rest of the four-day convention would be determined on a day-to-day basis. Many questions remain open, such as whether McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, will appear in St. Paul to accept their party's nominations or will make their acceptance speeches by video from the Gulf Coast.

On Sunday afternoon, McCain went on television and declared that Gustav's threat meant that members of his party should "take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats." He made similar remarks at a campaign rally in St. Louis, even as some of his allies there, such as Mitt Romney and Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, publicly criticized Democrats and their nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, at the same event.

"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 after a brief tour with Palin of a federal disaster relief center in Jackson, Miss.

Convention planners and delegates in St. Paul said that it could be politically perilous to continue the convention as the Gulf Coast braces for the arrival of Gustav. The Bush administration's unsteady response to Hurricane Katrina, which left New Orleans in ruins three years ago, outraged Americans, drew criticism from McCain and remains, for many, a stain on President Bush's record.

Pluses and minuses

But Gustav does present some political opportunities to McCain. He looked like a man in charge on television on Sunday as he described meeting with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and federal disaster officials. The tumult may also limit comparisons, which may have been unfavorable, between the Republican convention and the Democratic convention in Denver last week, where the acceptance speech of Sen. Barack Obama drew more than 40 million television viewers.

There are downsides, too, however. Republicans were planning four days of high-profile attacks on Obama in St. Paul, and it appears -- from McCain's pledge to turn the convention from "a party event to a call to the nation for action" -- that such broadsides against Obama will be lost.

Rick Davis, the McCain-Palin campaign manager, said at a news conference that today's convention session will be scaled back to two and a half hours. It will be limited to official business such as adopting the platform and electing convention officers.

At least one night of speakers and guaranteed news coverage will be lost, something Davis only alluded to obliquely, saying the campaign had obviously hoped it could have "a more traditional" convention.

"Events have conspired to do otherwise," said Davis, adding later when pressed that "we really don't have the luxury of trying to evaluate the politics of this kind of situation."