Thanks to Gustav, Presidential Campaign Frozen in Place

It’s Labor Day and very little is being said on the morning TV shows or on Internet news outlets about this end of summer holiday established to celebrate and honor American workers. This time last year I posted A Labor Day Salute to Diversity here at Katalusis and in a presidential campaign that now features an African-American nominee for the presidency on the Democratic side and a woman nominee for the vice-presidency on the Republican side, words written in Sept. 2007 remain appropriate.

Which reminds me, in early Sept. 2007, the Democratic primary was just getting warmed up and of the six candidates in the running at the time, one was female, Sen. Hillary Clinton; another was African-American, Sen. Barack Obama; and a third was Hispanic, Gov. Bill Richardson.

On the first day of Sept. 2008, the Democratic convention closed a few days ago, and the Republican convention had been scheduled to start today. As reported in the Washington Post, thanks to Hurricane Gustav, the presidential campaign is frozen in place. Staff writer Dan Balz begins:

“ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 31 -- Three years after it battered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina upended this convention city Sunday.

“For John McCain, struggling to separate himself from the worst of President Bush's record and to get out from under the weight of his unpopular party, this week was supposed to be about emerging as his own candidate. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate energized the Republican Party's conservative base and the candidate himself, setting up a convention week designed to discredit Democratic nominee Barack Obama and boost McCain as an independent-minded reformer ready to shake up Washington.

‘“Now a storm called Gustav threatens to remind voters of perhaps the signal event that helped turn them against the GOP -- the Bush administration's botched response to the devastating 2005 storm. What neither McCain nor the party can tolerate now is anything that smacks of insensitivity or incompetence in the face of another potential natural disaster. As he told NBC anchor Brian Williams on Sunday, the opening of the convention ‘has got to be Americans helping Americans. America first.’”

Balz also notes:

“Gustav will disrupt the Democrats as well. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), will be forced to adjust their own campaign plans to account for the storm. McCain has moved quicker on that front, but the Democrats will certainly adapt.

“For now, the presidential campaign will be frozen in place until Gustav has played itself out. Whom that helps can't be foretold. McCain's pick of Palin shifted focus from Obama to the GOP, but Gustav has robbed McCain of the limelight. Americans are now riveted on the storm in the Gulf Coast rather than the convention center here in St. Paul. As Tom Rath, a veteran Republican strategist from New Hampshire, put it: ‘A sure, sensitive and effective response is more important than staging or rhetoric.’”

To read the Dan Balz article in its entirety, go here.