Bush, Cheney to skip GOP convention because of Gustav
BELTSVILLE, Md. -- President Bush and Vice President Cheney will skip the Republican National Convention to focus on Hurricane Gustav, which is approaching the Gulf Coast, it was announced this morning.
Bush's decision is just the latest hitch in what should have been a week of celebration marking the formal nomination of Arizona Sen. John McCain as his party's presidential candidate. Gustav will make landfall more than 1,000 miles from St. Paul, Minn., but the storm's reach will extend all the way to the convention, altering its tone and, possibly, its length.
"We have to make sure the focus is on the South, on Gustav, make sure that all of the resources are there, and that anything that is done with regard to the convention doesn't take anything away from that and is done in a serious way," former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said today on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Several speakers, including Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, have already bowed out of the proceedings because of the storm.
Among those skipping the convention is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is involved in a budget fight with the Legislature. A friend of McCain, though they disagree on such issues as offshore oil drilling, Schwarzenegger was to deliver a speech outlining McCain's life history. That task will fall to former Sen. Fred Thompson, who ran a short-lived campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, arrived this morning in Jackson, Miss., to be briefed on the approaching storm. McCain was invited by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
In an interview taped Saturday and aired this morning on "Fox News Sunday," McCain said he had conferred by phone with Barbour as well as Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Bob Riley of Alabama and Crist of Florida.
"I've been talking to all of them," McCain said. He said the approaching storm had already put a cloud over the convention.
"It just wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster," McCain said. Still, he said, "I think that we are far, far better prepared than we were the last time."
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, campaigned this morning in Lima, Ohio, where he told reporters that the campaign would urge its electronic list of supporters to help or send money for the storm.
