Isaac is currently a tropical storm, but it is following the same track as Katrina, and I’ve seen some speculation that it could make landfall as a Category 3 Hurricane.
That’s a problem for the GoP, and for the networks.
From the GoP perspective, the convention is supposed to be a scripted coronation of the party’s nominee, with celebrations, balloons falling from the ceiling, cheers, music, etc. To a certain extent, it is the kickoff of the “real campaign” season. At the same time, you probably don’t really want to be in full on celebration mode during a natural disaster, and you don’t want to lose coveted prime time coverage, especially not to your opponent looking strong and in charge.
From the network perspective, you want to be fair in allotting coverage to both sides during their respective conventions, but you can’t ignore a hurricane. If you cut away from the convention coverage to cover breaking news, how do you handle the Dem convention which is unlikely to face a similar competing story?
The GoP appears to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis. The network position isn’t much more comfortable, although they have considerably less at stake.
The Dems are probably secretly loving this. They can’t get hurt here, may get some positive press for their candidate with a strong disaster response situation, and probably don’t have to deal with similar challenges during their own convention.
What effect, if any, will this have on the election?
I don’t know how much convention news changes elections these days, so having the spotlight off of it won’t matter too much. I do think the possibility of it hitting N.O. as a strong hurricane, and Obama doing a heckuva job in response to it, is more potentially damaging.
In retrospect, planning your convention on the Gulf coast in August is probably a poor idea.
As to the election, I don’t think anyone pays much attention to the first few days of Convention coverage anyways. Unless the Hurricane is particularly disasterous (in which case coverage of it will probably step on the Dem convention as well), I imagine it will have basically passed by Wendsday night and there will still be plenty of time for the media to focus on the bits of the Convention people might actually watch: Romney, Ryan and Cristie.
Other than canceling the first day in Tampa, the GoP would have the same problem if they’d held the convention in Seattle. In a perfect world, they want a whole lot of nothing going on besides the convention, so they draw the largest possible viewing audience. Instead, they’re boxed in by events beyond their control. Can’t slip anything important to Saturday because it’s opening weekend of college football season, and Saturday night features Alabama-Michigan in prime time. No political convention is going to outdraw that.
It may be a hidden blessing for them, given the latest gaffe to content ratio coming from our professional politicians. It’s quite possible that at least one speaker’s misconceptions about conception (for example) may be overshadowed by some tragedy in Louisiana.
Those tropical storm gusts just may be enough to mess up the hairdo, so I understand Romney is packing an extra can of hair spray. Other than hair or wardrobe malfunctions on the way to the arena, I don’t see a lot of impact here. The storm is serious business if you’re in its way, but then again it isn’t anywhere near Katrina.
Conventions are not nearly as relevant as they once were. No longer are the networks captive to gavel-to-gavel coverage, no longer are viewers captive to the networks. If you’d rather watch a sitcom than the convention, you’ll have no trouble finding one. If you’re tuning in to cheerlead for Romney, none of this will impact your vote. If you’re a Democrat hoping for a train wreck, the hurricane will not bother you in the least. Romney will make a speech, if it’s good then snippets go in his campaign ads, if he screws the pooch then Obama will use the snippets.
Plus it calls attention to how bad Bush and his Republican friends screwed up, and how important the government can be in things like this. But it also means that the networks will cut away from the blowhards and focus on storm news. If a politician makes a speech without network coverage, did it really happen?
The irony is wonderful. The God botherers have God toss a hurricane right during their convention, and/or the climate change deniers have one of the impacts of climate change at the same time. Of course climate change isn’t the direct cause of Isaac, but it is delicious irony.
Yeah, you know an ideal situation for the Democrats would be for the Tampa convention center to become a hurricane shelter, and then not screw up providing services to the refugees (including the Republican convention goers).
So maybe God is on the R side, since he is steering the hurricane away from Florida and towards New Orleans.
Let’s be serious for a second: does anyone really give a shit about the convention? It’s not as though Romney’s going to win over millions of independents with a speech.
I’d say for a previously low profile challenger, its of some importance. Gives Romney a chance to put across an image of something other then “rich Mormon”, which I imagine is what most of the “gettable”, unegaged voters probably know about him at this point.
In the best case, thats probably still only a few points of the electorate, but the race is close enough that it could make the difference between who wins in November.
Taxpayers are, once again, chipping in on the cleanup: Tropical Storm Isaac: Obama declares Louisiana emergency - BBC News . Why don’t they just get all those Churches to send down folks with their ATVs and chainsaws? (Of course, the last time they did that, they infested the north east with midge flies that killed the deer population… hey, but what’s a little bit of massive die off in your rivers and streams (not to mention breeders who were wiped out) between friends?
Yup, we don’t need to Federal government. I want to see a protest go up about Federal dollars being used to clean up in those states that are so fiscally responsible that they won’t expand the Medicare coverage. Next time, the NHC should tell them to just watch the sky outside to determine if they’re going to get hit with a rain squall or a Cat 2 Hurricane.
