| At the risk of seeming insensitive to the situation, I'm struck by how the Republican National Convention is a victim of a "perfect storm". Even without the hurricane refocusing attention on Katrina, the GOP faced an uphill battle to make their convention draw for the voters.
The primary election was draining by any measure. The campaign season afterwards was more like a hangover than it was like gaining a second wind. Luckily for everyone except the GOP, the Beijing Olympics took over the 24-hour news cycle for two weeks and gave the viewing public a break from politics just at the point at which the whole circus was becoming a numbing spectacle. Michael Phelps, the Redeem Team, and the controversies of the Games were riveting. A refreshed electorate then turned its attention to the Democratic convention, their appetites whetted by the return of equally refreshed reporters, pundits and talking heads. Four nights of perfectly choreographed momentum culminating in a speech by Barack Obama that left even hardcore conservatives like Pat Buchanan gushing with praise.
Then, the calendar took over. For much of the country, school started. Whether it was colleges and universities all over the country welcoming their student body or the start of high school in many states, voters' took their eyes off of politics to instead scan Kmart and Walmart circulars for dorm supplies and school clothes. And with the start of school comes football. When you realize that many WNYers like me will even sit and watch Delaware play Maryland, you can imagine the higher level of attention paid in the Southeast and Midwest, and anywhere there's even a mid-level local college football team. This past Saturday, high school teams all over WNY were scrimmaging in preparation for the upcoming season. In the South and parts of the Southwest, they were already playing regular season games. Add to this all the other sports that even here in WNY have already played regular season games. Not only does the GOP have to try to match the high standard set by the Democratic convention, they have to do it while Americans have many, many claims on their short attention span and after a long, long....loooooong campaign season.
And now, a hurricane? A hurricane that is centered on the City of New Orleans, the festering reminder of the moment when the Bush Administration and the Republican dominated Congress began their calamitous slide? Even as I type this, CNN is reporting that levees in a Louisiana parish are in danger of collapsing, three years after the natural and governmental disaster that was Katrina. If there's a silver lining in all of this for the GOP, it can't be bigger than a dime.
There was talk even within the Republican party that they faced the chance of historical defeat all along the ballot. The convention was their opportunity to re-brand themselves in an attempt to separate from the handicap of eight years of the outgoing administration. It appears that on top of the widely acknowledged success of the Democratic convention and the mis-scheduling their own convention, the Republicans have to deal with both an American electorate pulled in many directions, and a re-visitation to one of their most damaging domestic failures of the last eight years. If I didn't think it was so important that we change course now, I'd almost feel bad for them. |
