Storm forces GOP convention overhaul

(AP) TAMPA, Florida - Republicans were scrambling Sunday to rejigger the schedule for their massive rally to officially name Mitt Romney to challenge President Barack Obama, working feverishly on a new plan for the storm-shortened gathering that kicks off the fall campaign for the White House.

As Tropical Storm Isaac whirled north along Florida's west coast, Romney and his party canceled Monday's first day of the Republican National Convention in a bow to nature's potential fury.

"The safety of those in Isaac's path is of the utmost importance," Romney tweeted after Republican officials announced they had called off Monday's convention proceedings.

Because of possible storm surges and flooding that Isaac could bring, convention organizers said they were making contingency plans to move delegates who have been booked into beachfront hotels to other locations if necessary. They indicated the schedule shift also was meant to prevent overburdening emergency response personnel at the height of the storm.

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With Monday's schedule now a blank, Romney was still working to undo the small lead that polls show Obama holds going into the convention.

In an interview broadcast by Fox News, Romney accused Obama's campaign of trying to link him to Rep. Todd Akin's statements about rape and abortion. The Republican standard-bearer said that was a sad new low in the bitter election race, but he conceded the controversy over Akin's remarks was hurting the Republican Party.

Akin is the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri who said women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy from a "legitimate" rape. Romney and other party leaders criticized those statements and urged Akin to drop out of the Senate race. Akin, a favorite of Christian conservatives who oppose all abortions even in the case of rape and incest, has refused to step aside.

"It really is sad, isn't it, with all the issues that America faces for the Obama campaign to continue to stoop to such a low level," Romney said on Fox.

Obama hasn't explicitly linked Romney to Akin, but he said in an interview with The Associated Press that his opponent has locked himself into "extreme positions" on economic and social issues and would surely impose them if elected president.

As Romney aides worked to reshape the convention schedule and Isaac moved north, the candidate was taking a rare day off the campaign trail at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire, receiving updates on the storm, attending services at the local Mormon church, and making final preparations for the Thursday speech with which he will accept his party's presidential nomination.

Obama was at the Camp David presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains north of Washington, gearing up for campaigning this week on college campuses across Iowa, Colorado and Virginia - all so-called swing states where polls show voters are not solidly in the camp of one candidate or the other.

The U.S. president is not chosen according to the nationwide popular vote but in state-by-state contests. Of the 50 states, about 43 are already viewed as settled upon Romney or Obama, meaning the outcome in seven states - including those Obama visits this week - likely will decide which man sits in the White House for the next four years.

Republicans decided late Saturday to bring the convention symbolically into session Monday but to postpone the day's events until Tuesday.

Convention spokesman James Davis said organizers were closely monitoring the storm's path but planned to rely on emergency management officials to guide decisions on whether to relocate delegates at waterfront hotels. So far, none have been moved nor had officials received word of major problems for inbound delegates.

Davis said the GOP's advice to delegates was "if your travel plans have not been interrupted and they're set, we recommend you come on down."

Obama has dispatched the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish a command center and move more resources into the state. Vice President Joe Biden scrapped a planned campaign trip into Florida that was to counter the start of the Republican gathering.

Republicans hope to use this week's convention to cast Romney as a determined leader with the know-how to fix the country's economy. They also want to introduce him as a family-oriented figure to counter Democrats' attempts to paint him as a cold-hearted and ruthless businessman who cannot connect with middle-class Americans.

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[TimeToEvo1ve]

A motley crew of anti-government extremists having a convention to talk about taking over the government. OMG, save us and our country from the wrath of the Republicons.

[tafhdyd]

Republicans were scrambling Sunday to rejigger the schedule...

rejigger, verb,to rearrange or organize something differently. Somehow I have a feeling the GOP has another meaning for that word.

[TimeToEvolve]

A motley crew of anti-government extremists having a convention to talk about taking over the government. OMG, save us and our country from the wrath of the Republicons.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Republicans are rigging the elections trying to steal it with these unnecessary VOTER I.D. LAWS and they had yet to pay the appropriate price for subverting our constitution and democracy. The media print, video and digital are complicit in allowing this. The media and our government would be shouting what republicans are doing at every chance if this were going on in country of one of our enemies. But it's accepted because it's happening here in America?

HELL NO! Republicans must be held to account for this attack to subvert our democracy. Republicans should be attacked by libertarians, liberals, conservatives, tea partiers and other groups in addition to the media for subverting our right to vote.

[cubscout09]

Since, Romney has spent so much time with the Tea Party over the last week, maybe, he should take a page from Glenn Beck's 9/12 and photoshop the entire event.

[lloydbest1]

For those of you who care about such things.....God (should there actually be one) very probably doesn't care whether His (Her?) children are Republican, Democrat, Socalist, Rastafarian, New-ager or whatever. Isaac sideswiping Tampa/St. Pete at the same time the GOP is party-ing down is a coincidence. Nothing more.

Anyone who does believe there is a Divine intelligence driving Isaac and whose thoughts on the modern GOP range from "the greatest thing since stone tools" all the way to "the greatest evil since God demoted Satan" should remember this. It comes from the Book of Matthew:

"...For He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

[Verascity]

Be careful what you pray for.

In 2008, Focus on the Family's Dobson asked Evangelicals to pray for rain at Barack Obama nomination. "Evangelical Christians have been asked to pray for 'rain of biblical proportions' to fall on Senator Barack Obama as he accepts the Democratic nomination."

Looks as if God heard them but disagreed about the target. "Biblical proportions" it is.

[Verascity]

Isaac's putting a crimp in GOP plans to party with their money changers...I mean lobbyists. . Awww.

[harv823]

The Republicans are worring about how to make a profit on the hurricane.

[PatriotPaul]

As a Calfornia tourist who was stuck in the Superdome I know that voters' memories are so short. It is incredibly important WHO our national leader is as to how we respond to disasters, whether natural or unnatural. Many past Presidents (both Republicans & Democrats) have responded powerfully and immediately to earthquakes, mass murders, tornadoes, firestorms, etc.

Days after Katrina, Pres. Bush said, "No one could have foreseen the breach of the levees." Six months after Katrina videos and transcripts were uncovered that showed him being warned by experts days in advance that the levee breaches were quite probable and that the hurricane would be horrific. He simply said that "everything was taken care of".

When you have a political party that places the welfare of the rich over the poor and middle class and invading other countries under false pretenses as a higher priority than responding to an immediate crisis in our own country Bush's lack of response was no surprise.

Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"