Hurricane Isaac's Impact on the GOP
Jules Witcover

Hurricane Isaac may have spared Tampa its most severe hit, but the Republican National Convention taking place there nevertheless has been left with a clean-up job regarding the Grand Old Party itself.

With all but the ceremonial acceptance speech by presidential nominee Mitt Romney remaining as important convention business, the party must come to terms with the fact that, like Romney himself, it has accepted the image of a political entity willing to face the electorate in unvarnished conservative garb.

The remaking of the previously moderate Massachusetts governor has provided a veneer of party unity that has not quite been achieved. Romney still boasts of having provided what the Obama camp gleefully calls the state model for its national health care reforms, blurring the GOP fight against "Obamacare."

Republicans came to Tampa temporarily diverted from Romney's focus on saving the stalled economy, thanks to the flash flood Missouri Rep. Todd Akin caused by offering his absurd rationale against an exception for rape in any ban on abortions. Romney, after first limiting his response to saying Akin was wrong, finally called on him to withdraw his bid for the Senate, which the ultraconservative candidate flatly rejected.

Meanwhile, the party's platform committee meeting in Tampa had already included in its 2012 abortion plank the selfsame policy of no exception for rape. Romney gamely insisted that was the party's position on the issue but not his, while also insisting that his devotion to the true conservative faith remained steadfast. For a party already struggling with a wide gap of support among women that favors Obama, the re-emergence of the abortion issue was untimely, to say the least.

Inevitably, many Republicans are second-guessing the party's decision to hold its convention in Florida unusually late in August with hurricane season arriving. The news media pack in Tampa has taken note of the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans just as Isaac closed in on the still-recovering city.

President Obama wasted no time declaring Louisiana eligible for federal disaster relief. He can be counted on to behave in politically advantageous contrast to George W. Bush's botched initial response to the Katrina calamity.

As Obama has that convenient way to occupy himself during the Republican convention, Romney back in Tampa still has the task of coping with the challenge that has plagued him throughout his long slog in the GOP primaries. He must take the shortened opportunity to define himself satisfactorily to uncertain voters, both within his party and particularly among independents and Democrats.

In the run-up to the convention, Romney finally began in his fashion to let his hair down in television interviews. In one, he invited Fox News anchor Chris Wallace into the family home in Michigan, where the nominee and his wife, Ann, served up a folksy breakfast and chatter. Mrs. Romney's prime time convention speech was designed to introduce the real Mitt, who seemingly has had so much trouble introducing himself.

At the same time, this troublesome identity difficulty has inevitably put more attention on Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, whose earnestness on the stump clearly has heartened Republican deficit hawks, especially those in tea party ranks.

Ryan's presence on the ticket, however, has also put a spotlight on the House Budget Committee chairman's plan to cut deeply into Medicare benefits for the elderly and to shift responsibilities to the states. An old political axiom states that a running mate may not help the ticket but surely should not hurt it; that may be tested this year.

For all the professional politicians' talk of the national convention as an opportunity to provide a boost in the polls for the party standard-bearer, the record is mixed at best. In a race that most surveys say remains extremely tight, Romney's acceptance speech Thursday could be the most important of his political life. To date, nothing he has said about himself seems to have made him the object of wide Republican affection.

 

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Hurricane Isaac's Impact on the GOP | Politics

 

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