Nice LAT Headline: "For GOP, storm's timing makes it harder to be anti-government"

[kpete]

For GOP, storm's timing makes it harder to be anti-government
As Isaac aims at the Gulf Coast, leaders at the Republican convention may have to adjust the message they plan to send.

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The Obama administration Monday issued a detailed accounting of preparations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — more than 1 million liters of drinking water, 436,000 meals, 2,000 cots, 4,600 blankets and other supplies stocked in warehouses in Alabama and Florida — and made it known that the president was being briefed and had called Gulf Coast governors, all Republicans.

For all their budget-cutting ardor, most Republicans do not openly advocate the closure of, say, the National Hurricane Center or FEMA, though some have demanded that spending for disaster relief be offset by cuts elsewhere. But the budgets that Romney and Paul D. Ryan have advocated would force huge reductions in domestic programs, which would include those areas. The danger for them is that the response to Isaac will show government as less a problem than a solution.

And then there are what political professionals call the "optics."

MORE:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-convention-analysis-20120828,0,3742541.story