The GOP Convention Makes History Before It Even Has Started...

Hurricane Gustav Causes GOP to Cut Convention Schedule, Speeches..

I have a request for the guys blogging at the convention... What is the opinion of the delegates with the announcement of the abbreviated schedule of the convention? With the upcoming landfall of Hurricane Gustav on New Orleans, the Republican Party has changed the schedule of Day One of the convention, with further changes going on a day-to-day basis...

If you haven't kept up with the hurricane due to the holiday, here is a recap. It is about 350 miles southwest of New Orleans, moving northwest on a straight line at 18 MPH, with sustained winds of 115MPH, gusting up to 150 MPH. As bad as Katrina was, there are aspects of Gustav that are more frightening...

Gustav is quickly accelerating, so where it was once expected to be late tomorrow, it is now expected to hit land around early afternoon Monday. It also is expected to hit just west of New Orleans, so the Big Easy will be smack in the dreaded " Northeast Quadrant", where the most damage occurs. Instead of flooding coming from Lake Ponchartrain in the north, it will come from the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Katrina actually hit east of New Orleans, as a Category 2, so what happened in Pass Christian and Waveland , Miss then could be expected tomorrow in New Orleans... Damage is expected to be about $29 Billion...

All is not bad news though.. The entire city has been evacuated, and FEMA is there already. Looks like everyone learned their lesson from 2005.......... Now, as far as the convention goes, what does a hurricane have to do with that? Not a whole lot. Honestly, if this hurricane was hitting Florida, or Houston - or South Carolina - the convention would go on. But New Orleans has a lot of baggage with it. The Bush Administration looked bad from all sides during Katrina. It has already been announced that President Bush and VP Cheney will not be in Minneapolis for the duration of Gustav.

Like most things in politics, it's not how things are, but how they look. Thirty thousand rich, Country Club, White Republicans having a party and celebrating while the Chocolate City floods just looks bad, so to stick to just party business, and giving up the free airtime on all the network and cable channels is the smart thing to do. Will McCain and Sarah Palin be on the podium Thursday Night? Even that is not sure yet. Is this a good or bad thing for the GOP? That's a question I can't , nor would I want to think about........ Too political for me.

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