http://www.alternet.org/environment/97103/how_the_gop_is_counting_on_hurricane_gustav_for_an_image_makeover/Think I'm being too cynical? Consider that McCain decided yesterday to gin up publicity for his campaign by touring the Gulf region with newly-minted vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. While down in Mississippi, McCain announced that the Republican National Convention this week would be transformed from "a party event to the call to the nation for action, action to help our fellow citizens in this time of tragedy and disaster, action in the form of volunteering, donations, reaching out our hands and our hearts and our wallets to the people who are under such great threat." What this means is anybody's guess, although GOP officials have been floating trial balloons about the idea of transforming the entire RNC into a giant telethon to help the hurricane victims. Not to be outdone, Senator Norm Coleman blatantly made the case that McCain would be the best president to defend the country from both terrorism and natural disasters. The hurricane also gave Bush a convenient opportunity to skip out of town and without weighing down the party with his sub-zero approval ratings. As one anonymous Republican strategist told the Washington Post, "Now the Republican brand out there is not so bad... the does-Bush-help-or-hurt question doesn't need to be asked or answered."
To understand why the GOP has been so quick to cover all its bases on the current hurricane, we should consider the tremendous fallout that Hurricane Katrina had on the Bush presidency. The 2005 storm had a devastating political impact on George W. Bush and the Republican brand because it showed the American public what happens when a political party believes at its core that government should not be taken seriously.
Sound extreme? Consider Michael Brown, the woefully unqualified former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who became the public face of the disaster when Bush praised him against all evidence for doing a "heck of a job." Prior to becoming head of the nation's largest disaster relief agency, Brown worked for 11 years as "the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian Horse Association." His only supposed experience in emergency management had been working for the emergency services division in the city of Edmond, Oklahoma for three years in the 1970s.
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