The One Part Of The Hurricane Response Republicans Won't Screw Up
by tristero
In a post earlier today, Digby noted that for Republicans, " A big disaster is a big opportunity. "
Indeed it is:Officials with the McCain campaign and the Republican National convention are considering changing the event's agenda as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast...
A senior McCain source said Saturday that officials are considering turning the convention into a service event, a massive telethon to raise money for the Red Cross and other agencies to help with the hurricane.
"He wants to do something service-oriented if and when the storm hits and it's as bad as its expected to be now," the McCain source said.
They are also hoping to get McCain himself to a storm-affected area as soon as possible.
And Bush is planning probably to skip the convention in order to look presidential during a crisis - I'm sorry, I meant to type "closely monitor the effectiveness of the emergency response forces."
It is genuinely revolting to think of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane as a marketing op, but this is, after all, a country run by a man who let himself be photographed carrying a fake turkey to feed soldiers in Iraq. So I wonder if the Obama team has given any thought to what a spectacular PR coup this will be. And the bar for Republicans to "succeed" is particularly low. All Bush needs to do is to ensure that less than 1836 Americans end up drowning in their own waste, as they did the last time a hurricane struck during a Republican presidency to declare Operation Hype The Hurricane a triumph.
(By the way, the entire CNN article stinks to heaven. It sounds like a trial balloon, to test how the idea of a telethon might play.)
{UPDATE: The Republican hyping of Gustav begins. And where are the Democrats?}