The GOP puts itself at the eye of a storm by Fran Wood
September 02, 2008
Hurricane Gustav has come and gone, and while it created some serious problems, the direst predictions of its impact on the Gulf Coast fortunately did not come to pass.
At the same time, if its landfall wasn't as devastating as it might have been, neither was the windfall for which some Republicans were hoping.
As soon as the track of the storm became clear, Republicans canceled most of the Monday program at their national convention to instead put on a nationally televised show of concern for potential victims.
No doubt there were many sincere people involved in that decision. But collectively, to be honest, using the impending storm to display compassionate conservatism didn't become them.
The wiser course would have been to proceed with their convention as planned rather than redirect the focus in a way that in the end could only remind voters of the depraved indifference the current administration displayed three years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Not everyone felt that way, of course. On the Fox News channel, longtime commentator Fred Barnes bluntly declared that for the Republican image, "Gustav erases Katrina."
As if.
I'd argue the opposite -- that calling attention to images of waves lapping at the New Orleans levees only summons the too-fresh 2005 images of people on rooftops futilely waving for help, or shortages of food and water inside a sweltering Superdome, or families sent to neighboring states like refugees in their own land.
You'd have thought someone in charge this time would have asked aloud whether a video bite -- John McCain packing relief supplies in Ohio, President Bush sitting at a meeting -- was apt to stick with voters longer than this administration's track record, which is something Republicans would much prefer that voters forget.
True, McCain was not involved in the post-Katrina debacle and even criticized it. But he also voted against relief packages, extension of unemployment benefits for New Orleans residents and an investigation of what happened -- so he'd probably just as soon not have it be a front-burner issue.
By attempting to portray themselves as more compassionate and involved this time around, Republicans only tied their fate more closely to Bush -- at a point when McCain is having enough trouble trying to figure out how to set himself apart from the Bush failures while not rejecting his party's leader and his country's president altogether.
Continuing this convention as planned would have sent a different message -- that McCain's people have no obligation to help repair the damage to Bush's reputation from Katrina.
As it was, only a decision to spend their convention week in silence, mourning the lives lost in Iraq, could have made people think any more vividly of this administration's failures.
Surely some McCain Republicans must have resented the Bush administration putting them in this position, since it's a safe bet the convention would have proceeded as planned had there been no lingering negative fallout from the original Katrina failures.
Conventions routinely take place during hurricane season, wars and other crises, so it's not like there haven't been negative events outside the convention walls before. Yet one is hard-pressed to recall any other convention where delegates suspended their schedule to watch the Weather Channel.
It's not like members of the Montana delegation had to be excused so they could throw sandbags on the levees. Or like the Connecticut and Wisconsin delegations were going to be spending the week operating FEMA evacuation trains.
Certainly, it diluted some of the hoped-for impact from McCain's surprising vice presidential choice.
By naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to his ticket last Friday, McCain clearly wanted to siphon off some of the attention that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, had received for his acceptance speech the night before.
But news cycles are unpredictable and cruel. What would have been a week of good feeling about McCain's choice was rained out -- figuratively and perhaps literally -- less than 48 hours later.
Life isn't fair. That's for sure.
Then again, there's at least one bright spot: We have learned from this change in plans that the essential business of a convention can be accomplished in a couple of hours. It doesn't require four nights of television time.
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