Posted on 08/27/2012 3:28:16 PM PDT by middlegeorgian
Forget the media concern-trolling about cancellation. There’s no way the RNC’s going to forfeit face time for Romney on national television by pulling the plug when the whole point of this week was to introduce voters to the softer, more human side of Mitt. Barring Isaac turning into a hypercane, there’ll be at least one night of convention proceedings with Romney as the star speaker, and it’s not hard to guess what he’ll say.
"Planners are considering a range of options, depending on the vagaries of the storm. One of the worst-case scenarios would have Romney delivering a brief speech declaring the emergency bigger than politics, shuttering the convention, and turning the public’s attention to the Gulf Coast. Such a response would essentially be counter-programming to what people would expect from President Obama, one official said.
“That’s the worst-case scenario you just played out, and that might not be the worst-case scenario” politically for Romney if he’s seen as putting people ahead of politics, said the official who demanded anonymity."
If that’s not the worst-case scenario politically, what is? Obviously, Romney’s not going to give a red-meat speech pounding Obama if New Orleans is three feet underwater. A weather disaster means he’ll necessarily downshift into nonpartisan heal-the-nation statesman mode, but Obama will be in that mode too — at least until the Democratic convention opens next week — and, unlike Romney, Obama’s chances don’t depend in large part on one killer speech designed to successfully ingratiate him to the public. If Mitt loses that opportunity, it’s a problem, even though he’ll get credit for striking the right tone in focusing on the storm victims.
The pace of the storm’s progress is tricky too. Weather Underground:
"The latest set of 0Z and 06Z (8 pm and 2 am EDT) model runs are fairly unified taking Isaac ashore near Southeast Louisiana late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, but continue to show major differences in what happens after that. It is still uncertain if a trough of low pressure passing to the north of Isaac will be able to turn the storm due north, as the ECMWF model is predicting, or bypass the storm, allowing a more west-northwest motion into western Louisiana, like the GFS model is predicting. In either case, Isaac is likely to slow down as it approaches the coast, which will increase the damage potential fro m its wind, storm surge, and rains…
Isaac’s storm surge will provide the first test of the newly-completed New Orleans levee system upgrade. In the wake of the disastrous storm surge flooding from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Congress appropriated $14.5 billion to upgrade the New Orleans levee system to withstand a Category 3 hurricane storm surge. Katrina was a Category 3 storm at landfall, but the storm passed far enough to the east of the city that its storm surge was characteristic of a Category 1 – 2 storm at the places where the city’s flood walls and levees failed. The new flood defenses were only partially completed in time for the arrival of Hurricane Gustav in 2008, which hit Central Louisiana as a Category 2 storm. Gustav brought a storm surge characteristic of a Category 1 hurricane to New Orleans: 9.5′ to Lake Borgne on the east side of the city. Since that time, the imposing 2-mile long IHNC Flood Barrier has been completed to block off the funnel-shaped pair of canals on the east side of the city. I expect New Orleans’ new flood defenses will be able to hold back Isaac’s surge, but areas outside the levees are at risk of heavy storm surge damage."
What makes the timing tricky is that Tuesday’s usually the day for rhetorical bombthrowing at the convention, followed by a more optimistic tone on Wednesday and Thursday as the ticket is introduced. (Via the Daily Caller, see Krauthammer below for more on that.) The GOP can’t afford much of that this time. If tomorrow’s speakers go all out in attacking O and then disaster strikes New Orleans’s levees on Wednesday after Isaac comes ashore, the media will have a field day with the contrast. In fact, I’ve seen reports already that they’re planning de facto split-screen coverage. Imagine Romney laying into Obama in one window while a disapproving Chris Matthews points to the storm map in the other, shaking his head in exquisite, ineffable sadness. So much heart-ache, my friends.
Exit question via John Boehner: Would a one-day convention really be such a bad thing? Three hours on Thursday night: Ann Romney, Christie, Ryan, Rubio, and Mitt. That’s all you really need.
Somehow this all brings to mind McCain suspending his campaign for the sake of the economic crisis while Obama simply moved ahead and said, I can do two things at once.
The only reason the RNC exists, is to cave in....or so it seems.
The RNC exists for the same reason the Washington Generals do.
obama has already promised the “people” that he’s going to be there for them.
Can anyone reccommend the best place to live in Central or South America if the U.S. crashes?
Geesh! This is wishful leg-tingling fantasy by the MSM.
This morning we had the report of the convention theme being “Obama is a nice guy, just out of his depth.” Now we hear them running scared of a rather piddly tropical-storm. Good grief. What is there to say?
LOL!
Good Lord.
Most likely, Mr. Romney is behind much of the shortening.
He wants his coronation ... and with no disagreement.
He is to be a deity, like Obama.
Now, bow.
a bunch of “hot air” over bunch of contigency planning
current Issac path as of this hour has the storm between Cat1 & Cat2 and heading to Gulf Coast landfall at, or east, or west of New Orleans
if we want to be like Democrats, we could hope for the worse, at New Orleans and go ahead and start calling it “Obama’s fault”.
(unfortunately we couldn’t get away with it ‘cause I expect GOP Govenor Jindahl will do a better job than his predeccessor as will the “reform” mayor (though a Dim) in New Orleans; and we know whatever Jindahl et al will do, Obama and Fema will get credit for it from the media.
Who in the Sam hell comes up with this Bullshit?
The convention started today, and is delayed till tommorrow.
Some people have got to get the hell off their high horse and start reporting instead of creating swindle sheet propaganda.
No wonder Palin declined to speak. She’d be the only one there with a pair.
Obama caused this....
“Tropical Storm Issac Hayes”
Dennis Prager spent most of his 3-hour radio show today ranting about how Republicans were the “stupid party” for cancelling the first day of the convention two days in advance before knowing if the storm would even hit, which it didn’t. He said they should’ve just told every attendee if the weather’s bad, stay home. And this is a guy who’s usually on the same page as the party, i.e. supporting Romney, calling for Akin to withdraw.
Time to “saac up”, RNC. Here is your memo for tomorrow:
“We, the RNC, will not cancel our convention due to the fact that our event was planned way before the MSM planned the hurricane Isaac. Sorry.”
“I-saac”, you-saac, we all-saac for ball-saac.”
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