I don’t know if Hurricane Gustav is going to deliver a devastating hit to the Gulf Coast but it will be a significant storm that produces a lot of damage. And…it will be have political ramifications. The Republicans know that they cannot afford another failed response. The federal government needs to perform, and if they perform well enough they may even be able to turn it into a plus for them. More likely, however, the storm will simply remind the public of the Bush administration’s second biggest failure. While New Orleans’ levees failed and it citizens drowned, Condi Rice went shoe-shopping on Fifth Avenue and George W. Bush ate birthday cake with John McCain.
McCain knows he’s vulnerable. That’s why he is traveling to Mississippi with his running mate to send the message that they care. That’s why Bush has canceled his Monday speech at the Republican convention. And that’s why John McCain is saying he might deliver his nomination speech from the ‘disaster zone’. The Republicans are in a bind because they can’t allow themselves to be seen fiddling in Minneapolis while the Gulf Coast burns. But they also can’t allow themselves to be seen as overcompensating for their failure during Katrina. An acceptance speech from the disaster zone is overcompensation.
We’re all very concerned for Americans in the path of this storm. Yet, the timing of this storm is some kind of divine justice. It’s as if all the souls that succumbed to the Katrina floodwaters have whipped up Hurricane Gustav and sent it to breech the levees protecting what remains of the Republican Party. Gustav will slam into the mainland just around the time the Republicans planned to start their convention, and that timing will not be lost on anyone that harbors even a modicum of superstition.
The best the Republicans can do is to show concern and make sure the federal government does a competent job of taking care of the victims. They seem to understand this but it remains to be seen if the Bush-led federal government is capable of competence. And McCain’s making a mistake if he’s serious about accepting the nomination from the disaster zone. That will be seen as exploitative and defensive at the same time.