KEY POINTS:
ST. PAUL, Minnesota - John McCain tore up the script for his Republican National Convention today, ordering the cancellation of all but essential opening-day activities as Hurricane Gustav churned toward New Orleans.
"This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans," he said as fellow Republicans converged on their convention city to nominate him for the White House.
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney scrapped plans to address the convention on Monday, and McCain's campaign chartered a jet to fly delegates back to their hurricane-threatened states along the Gulf Coast.
The hasty reordering of an event months in the making underscored not only the risk posed by Gustav, but also an intense desire by McCain and Republicans to avoid the political damage that Bush suffered from his widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
The formal business of the convention includes nominating McCain for president and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate on Wednesday.
McCain's acceptance speech, set for prime time on Thursday evening local time, is among the most critical events of the campaign for his chances of winning the White House.
Palin
Coming 12 hours after Barack Obama's commanding acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, the announcement that Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska only since 2006, would be on the Republican ticket in November guarantees that new ground will be broken by this already astounding campaign.
For the first time ever, either a black man or a woman will hold one of the two highest offices in the land.
These breakthroughs in race and gender are matched by breakthroughs in geography as well. Never before have the two most peripheral American states been so directly involved in a presidential battle.
Obama was born in Hawaii, regarded by most Americans as an island holiday paradise in the Pacific. In Alaska, inhabitants refer to the 48 states south of Canada as "Outside". Such is the interest in Obama that the TV audience for his acceptance speech hit 40 million, more than watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
There are already signs of a decent post-convention "bounce" for the Democrat, as Hillary Clinton supporters return to the fold. Gallup now puts his lead at 8 per cent (49-41 per cent), compared with a dead heat before the convention, after a spell in which Obama lost momentum and McCain seized the initiative.
The combination of a mightily unpopular Republican incumbent in George Bush, an almost equally disliked war in Iraq, a lousy economy and a record 80 per cent of Americans who believe the country is "on the wrong track" was always going to make this election especially tough for McCain.
Now this near-perfect political storm has been joined by a real meteorological storm. If Hurricane Gustav slams into the Gulf Coast - perhaps even at New Orleans, where Katrina struck exactly three years ago - precious media coverage will be diverted from the Republican jamboree.
Whatever happens, Gustav cannot but evoke memories of Katrina's shambolic aftermath, the biggest domestic blot on the Bush record. Despite denials by top Republican officials, talk persists that St Paul could be postponed, or its opening delayed.
During the primaries former President Bill Clinton warned Democratic voters not to "roll the dice" by choosing Obama over his wife Hillary. Now McCain has decided to do precisely that in his choice of running mate.
The veteran Arizona senator has never been afraid to stick his neck out. But Palin is surely his biggest political gamble ever.
Perhaps, it will be a winner. At the very least, the appearance in St Paul of Palin will breathe life into what had seemed set to be the dullest of conventions. Conceivably, it might redraw the parameters of the entire campaign.
Within a couple of hours of her name emerging, online sales surged of Palin's hitherto obscure biography Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down. Publishers have already ordered an extra print run.
In political terms, she embodies the break with the past that McCain must convey to voters if he is to survive the poisonous association with Bush.
Her conservative views will help to energise religious voters. As an outsider with executive experience, she strengthens the "anti-Washington" credentials of a ticket led by a man who, despite his reputation as a maverick, has run nothing larger than a senate office.
She ought also to boost McCain's appeal to independents and women - above all, Senator Hillary Clinton's supporters, a fifth of whom still insist they will not vote for Obama.
She is also pro-life and pro-gun, qualities that should give her appeal among "Reagan Democrats", working-class whites in vital, industrial swing-states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan which have been known to vote Republican.
But the risks for McCain are at least as great. For one thing, the choice of Palin largely takes off the table the Republican "experience" argument, contrasting the battle-hardened senator against the raw Obama.
Unlike Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who had been favourite for the job, she has no particular economic expertise.
As for her national security qualifications, they make Obama look like Dwight Eisenhower.
Moments after she was unveiled at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, McCain staffers were making laughable efforts to boost her credentials, pointing to her role as commander-in-chief of that redoubtable force known as Alaska's National Guard, and providing pictures of her visiting US troops in Iraq, brandishing an M-4 rifle to the camera.
The fact, however, is that if McCain wins, this woman of 44, unheard of by 98 per cent of the country a few days ago, will be standing a heartbeat from the presidency. McCain, at 72, appears to be in rude health and maintains a hectic pace on the campaign trail. Nonetheless he has a history of melanoma skin cancer, and would be the oldest ever man to enter the Oval Office.
The campaign is promoting Palin as a doughty warrior against corruption, and her home state approval rating is high. But is she really ready to take over as commander-in-chief?
"This isn't wise judgement; this is political panic," one top Democratic strategist said - and many non-Democrats may agree.
- INDEPENDENT
PROGRAMME
Tomorrow
Theme: Service
Speakers include: President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, first lady Laura Bush, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Wednesday
Theme: Reform
Speakers include: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, former Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Thursday
Theme: Prosperity
Speakers include: Cindy McCain, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, vice-presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina, Victory 08 chairwoman for the Republican National Committee and former chairwoman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Meg Whitman, national co-chair for McCain 2008 and former president and CEO of eBay.
Friday
Theme: Peace
Speakers include: Presidential candidate John McCain, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida.
- AP
