Mon, September 01, 2008 - 7:52 PM

With Hurricane Gustav crashing down on the Gulf Coast Monday, John McCain asked GOP convention delegates to "take of your Republican hats and put on your American hats" -- a metaphor for putting aside party politics in the face of a natural disaster.

But even as Gustav lashed the Gulf and left hundreds of thousands without power, party politics crept back into the convention.

From the Associated Press on the first day's events:

Laura Bush succumbed to the temptation to nudge Obama. So did former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others. One-time California Gov. Pete Wilson acknowledged the difficulty of following McCain's orders to set politics aside.

"I confess to you, I am a lesser mortal. I find that difficult to do," Wilson told California delegates. "But I will try."

He spent the next 30 minutes doing quite the opposite, however. Wilson lambasted Obama on everything from his foreign policy platform to his positions on energy.

Wilson, who was California's governor from 1991 to 1999, slammed the Democratic platform as nothing more than socialism disguised as change.

"It's the class warfare that has been the staple of that party ever since the New Deal days," Wilson said.

So, Republicans could not follow McCain's metaphorical request. As I note in the video below, the day was largely free of partisan attacks, but not entirely. But what if one took McCain's hat request literally? Turns out, even that was too big a task, as I found out when I walked the convention floor with a video camera.

--Sean Mussenden

ST. PAUL -- The moribund Republican National Convention came to life briefly this afternoon when first lady Laura Bush and would-be first lady Cindy McCain took the stage. The delegates welcomed Laura Bush for so long and so heartily that she finally had to ask people to sit down.

"Our first priority now today is the safety and well being of those living in the Gulf Coast region," Bush said. In times like these, she said, "We're reminded first that we're all Americans."

The two were careful to avoid overtly political talk, although Laura Bush noted that the governors of five Gulf Coast states are Republicans, who would be at the convention were it not for Gustav.

The GOP convention then showed short video clips of Texas Gov Rick Perry, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour talking about relief efforts.

Cindy McCain quoted her husband that it's time to "take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats."

They called on conventioneers to go to www.causegreater.com to contribute to storm relief efforts.

-- Marsha Mercer

Republicans in St. Paul were caught off guard by the news that Gov. Sarah Palin's unmarried daughter is five months pregnant.

Sen. Richard Burr, a close ally of McCain, was quick to defend the governor's family.

"they’ve done wrong. We are all cross sections of America. This happens in America every day. I haven’t heard the news. If it’s confirmed, does it bug me? No. This is another challenge for a family that is just like every other family in a neighborhood somewhere in America,” he said.

The full AP story is below.

--Sean Mussenden

Palin says 17-year-old daughter is pregnant
By LIZ SIDOTI – 1 hour ago

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin said Monday that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant, an announcement campaign aides said was aimed at rebutting Internet rumors that Palin's youngest son, born in April, was actually her daughter's.

A statement released by the campaign said that Bristol Palin will keep her baby and marry the child's father. Bristol Palin's baby is due in late December.

"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents," Sarah and Todd Palin said in the brief statement.

The disclosure of the pregnancy came on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, scaled back because of Hurricane Gustav, and three days after McCain named Palin as his running mate. Other news was likely to overshadow the disclosure.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family," they added. The father was identified in the statement as Levi, but the campaign said it was not disclosing his last name or age.

Sarah Palin's fifth child, a son named Trig, was born in April with Down syndrome. Internet bloggers have been suggesting that the child was actually born to Bristol Palin but that her mother, the 44-year-old Alaska governor, claimed to be the mother.

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister emphatically denied those rumors, and McCain adviser Mark Salter said the campaign announced the daughter's pregnancy to rebut them.

"Senator McCain's view is this is a private family matter. As parents, (the Palins) love their daughter unconditionally and are going to support their daughter," said McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt.

"Life happens," he said.

"An American family," added Salter.

The advisers said Palin told them about the pregnancy during lengthy discussions about her background. At several points during the discussions, McCain's team warned Palin that the scrutiny into her private life would be intense and that there was nothing she could do to prepare for it.

Prominent religious conservatives, many of whom have been lukewarm toward McCain's candidacy, predicted that Palin's daughter's pregnancy would not diminish conservative Christian enthusiasm over the vice presidential hopeful.

"I think it's a very private matter," said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. "It's a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together. My prayers go out to them."

Added Combs: "We're excited about the governor and think she's going to do well."

Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: "We're all sinners."

"We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake," he said.

Staver also criticized anyone who would seek to make it a negative campaign issue: "It's absolutely shameful to put her child in the spotlight. She's not running for office. When someone can't face issues, they try to tear down a family."

Associated Press Writers Eric Gorski in St. Paul and Steve Quinn in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.

With most of the day's convention speeches dropped from the program because of concerns of appearing insensitive during Gustav, Sen. Richard Burr's turn in the spotlight just got a little brighter. The North Carolina senator is still on the speaking schedule today. As one of two co-chairs of the platform committee, he'll be introducing the party's official platform in a speech scheduled for approximately 4:30 central time.

Voting on the party platform is one of the few activities that will take place today, in a session that the party has stripped of politics.

That presented a challenge for Burr. He said his short speech will stick to, "the principles of the platform. It’s about the vision we present in that platform. We’ll focus on why ideas win at the end of the day instead of politics. It challenges the American people to focus on the strength and background of our candidates and how our platform is in sync with that,” he said in a brief interview.

“We’ve taken anything controversial out of our speeches. We don’t reference the democrats. We represent the differences, but not with respect to the opposition,” he said. I'm not sure how one can draw distinctions with an opponent without mentioning that opponent in some way, however vague. But I guess we'll see how Burr pulls it off.

Burr said that in reviewing his speech for controversial political content, he found he didn't need to drop anything, he said.

--Sean Mussenden

Because of Hurricane Gustav, John McCain asked Republicans gathering in St. Paul this week to take off their GOP hats and put on their American hats. Politics, he said, isn’t appropriate during a natural disaster.

And while you won’t see much of that on TV today during the official convention schedule – which has been stripped down to a shortened business only session and one speech by Laura Bush tonight – there’s plenty of political rhetoric in the hotel ballrooms outside of the convention hall.

I dropped by two breakfasts this morning, one for North Carolina delegates and one for South Carolina delegates, and found plenty of politicians making forceful cases for John McCain, drawing differences with Barack Obama. If that’s not politics, I don’t know what is.

At the North Carolina caucus meeting moments ago, Dan Coats, a former Republican senator from Michigan, appeared to step across the delicate line that separates politicizing a natural disaster and not doing so in praising John McCain.

“Now we have a national emergency that speaks to the leadership of John McCain,” he told delegates, implicitly arguing that the storm is highlighting qualities that voters would find desirable.

Meanwhile, at the South Carolina breakfast, state party chairman Katon Dawson again implored delegates to help raise funds for hurricane victims, pointing to the red buckets for the Salvation Army in the back.



On a day when McCain has called for non-partisanship to prevail, the man they chose to give the prayer at breakfast was interesting. He was a George Washington impersonator (the first I’ve ever seen). Washington was perhaps our most non-partisan president. Good start. Washington detested political parties, and thought their emergence would be ruinous for our country. He acknowledged that. But then he argued that if he were alive today, Washington would have good things to say about the current political system, in particular the Republican party.



To a roomful of Republicans. Apparently even George Washington isn’t above pandering.

--Sean Mussenden

I just dropped in on Sen. Richard Burr addressing the North Carolina delegation in advance of the official convention opening today.

Hurricane Gustav may have stolen some of the thunder from what was supposed to be a four day John McCain victory-fest, but Burr, a close McCain ally, told North Carolinians not to fret.

“This is going to be an election about the difference between two candidates,” he said. “I’m convinced that we’re going to win because of the power of our ideas, and not the length of our convention.”

Burr, who co-chaired the convention’s platform committee, told delegates that the platform contained quite a bit on natural disaster response. Probably more than the Democrats, he said.

I’ll let you be the judge of that. I’d already clipped those sections from each platform this morning, looking to do a little comparison. Both documents were prepared before Gustav started its long march through the Gulf, so I figured it would offer one small signal of how much each party cares about that issue. Granted, these are political documents, not a direct signal of each party’s interest.

But Burr brought it up, so here’s all the language on hurricanes, Katrina, disaster response, FEMA in each document.

The Republicans included two paragraphs:

Building a Health Care System for Future Emergencies
To protect the American people from the threats we face in the century ahead, we must develop and stockpile medicines and vaccines so we can deliver them where urgently needed. Our health care infrastructure must have the surge capacity to handle large numbers of patients in times of crisis, whether
it is a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, a flu pandemic, or a bioterror attack on multiple cities. Republicans will
ensure that this infrastructure, including the needed communications capacity, is closely integrated into
our homeland security needs.

Domestic Disaster Response
Americans hit by disaster must never again feel abandoned by their government. The Katrina disaster taught a painful lesson: The federal government’s system for responding to a natural calamity needs a radical overhaul. We recognize the need for a natural disaster insurance policy. State and local cooperation is crucial, as are private relief efforts, but Washington must take the lead in forging a partnership with America’s best run businesses to ensure that FEMA’s Emergency Operations Centers run as well as any Fortune 500 Company. We must make it easier for both businesses and non-profits to act as force-multipliers in relief situations. We believe it is critical to support those impacted by natural disasters and to complete the rebuilding of devastated areas, including the Gulf Coast.


The Democrats did too:

Hurricane Katrina
For many in America, Hurricane Katrina conjures up the memory of a time when America’s government failed its citizens. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn’t right with Washington. Our government’s response during Hurricane Katrina is a national shame–and yet three years later, the government has still failed to keep its promise to rebuild.
The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are heroes for returning and rebuilding, and they shouldn’t face these challenges alone. We will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina and restore the region economically. We will create jobs and training opportunities for returning and displaced workers as well as contracting opportunities for local businesses to help create stronger, safer, and more equitable communities. We will increase funding for affordable housing and home ownership opportunities for returning families, workers, and residents moving out of
unsafe trailers. We will reinvest in infrastructure in New Orleans: we will construct levees that work, fight crime by rebuilding local police departments and courthouses, invest in hospitals, and rebuild the public school system. We also commit to the rebuilding and restoration of the Iowa communities affected by the floods of 2008.

Preventing and Responding to Future Catastrophes
We will also work to prevent future catastrophic response failures, whether the mergency comes from hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, wild fires, drought, bridge collapses, or any other natural or man-made disaster. Maintaining our levees and dams is not pork barrel spending—it is an urgent priority. We will fix governmental agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ensure that they are staffed with professionals, and create integrated communication and response plans. We will reform the Small Business Administration bureaucracy, and develop a real National Response Plan. We will develop a National Catastrophic Insurance Fund to offer an affordable insurance mechanism for high-risk catastrophes that no single private insurer can cover by itself for fear of bankruptcy. This will allow states and territories to deal comprehensively with the economic dislocation of natural disasters.

***

Which one do you like better? Comment below.

Like Democrats who held their national convention in Denver, Florida’s delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., are not lacking in corporate sponsors for their breakfasts, parties and other social events.

But now that Republicans say they hope to use the convention this week to help raise money for oganizations that will help potential hurricane victims, it will be interesting to see if the same sponsors fork over money for that effort.

Here’s a list of some of the sponsors of the Florida delegation’s scheduled social events this week:

Florida Crystals: The Villages: Rosario Automotive: AT&T: Florida Association of Realtors: CSX Transportation: Disney World: Johnson & Johnson; Tyco Electronics; Amgen; Bacardi; Gulf Power; Merck; Reed Elsevier Inc.; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals; U.S. Walls and Ceilings; Steven Brown Direct Mail; Strategic Fundraising; The Goodman Co., SCM; Majority Strategies; Line 1.

Many of these corporations also are major donors to federal candidates and party committees and are also big spenders on federal lobbying. Some are contractors.

Public interest and government-watch groups have been trying to monitor the amount of coroporate sponsorship at the conventions; but they say it often is very difficult as the political parties aren’t always eager to give out such details.

However, the sponsors of the events for Florida’s Republican delegates are no mystery. Their names are being proudly displayed in signs along the main hall of the delegation’s hotel in Bloomington, near St. Paul.

-- Billy House

Political conventions have two main parts. There's the part you see on TV, the official speeches in the convention hall and delegates wearing funny hats. And there's the part you generally don't see on TV, the hundreds of lavish parties thrown by corporate sponsors for delegates outside the convention hall.

With the GOP scaling back its convention to avoid appearing insensitive as Hurricane Gustav crashed down on the Gulf Coast, there was some question about the fate of these events scheduled for the next few days. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Sunday that if the corporate sponsors wanted to move ahead with the parties, they should avoid doing anything to appear insensitive in light of the storm. And he asked them to use the events to collect money for hurricane victims.

The parties went on as planned. I stopped by a party hosted at a British pub by AT&T for South Carolina Republicans tonight and found that, like events held for other states, AT&T had incorporated a fundraising element.



When I walked in, the hostess handed me an AT&T logo stamped card with instructions for using a cell phone to send $5 via text message to the Red Cross. In case you want to do the same, text the word "GIVE" to the address "2HELP".

And I ran into South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson, who had set out a red bucket for delegates and other partygoers to donate money to the Salvation Army. There wasn't much in it when I talked to Dawson, but, admittedly, I left the party pretty early.

(The AT&T folks apparently didn't like my taking pictures inside the party. Apparently company officials schmoozing with lawmakers was something they really did not want covered).

If my experience at similar fundraising events is any guide, the donations start flowing after everyone has had a few drinks. I'm going to check tomorrow to see how much they raised last night for the Salvation Army. I'm guessing it was quite a bit.

Dawson told me that coming from South Carolina, a state that knows a thing or two about hurricanes, he felt compelled to help raise funds to clean up what everyone expects will be major destruction from Gustav. He chose the Salvation Army as the beneficiary because he'd seen them do good work in cleaning up after hurricanes in South Carolina.

He said national GOP officials made the right call in scaling back Monday's events because of the storm. "We as Republicans do fight hard in elections," he said. "But we also know when it's time to set politics aside."

Politics might have been set aside last night. But lobbying and marketing? No way. The AT&T sponsored event (free beer, free food) gave the company an opportunity to pitch its brand to some influential South Carolinians.



At one booth, a company rep showed of the latest iPhones.

Other employees carried around cell phones for guests to try out. Guests got goody bags stuffed with an AT&T hat, a stuffed elephant and a quiz on nothing-but-positive facts about AT&T.

For example: "Where does AT&T rank among Fortune Magazine's Most Admired Telecommunications Companies in America? A. Most admired; B. Top 10; C. Top 25." Did you guess A? Nice work.

The quiz didn't have a question asking how much money the company saved by convincing Congress and the Bush administration to grant it and other telecom companies immunity from warrantless wiretapping lawsuits. Answer: C. A lot.

The bags were for non-lawmakers only. A sign told elected official that AT&T's corporate counsel decided that the company could not give the freebies to lawmakers.

--Sean Mussenden