Republicans Scale back Convention Due to Gustav

George Wenschhof

4:00 PM ET - In a televised appearance, Senator John McCain spoke from St. Louis and said it was time to do away with party politics and act as Americans. The time for action is now. He is optimistic we will not see the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina repeated. At present, Hurricane Gustav is expected to hit by noon tomorrow.

They will suspend most of the activities tomorrow in St. Paul, Minnesota. Convention staff then gave a brief rundown of what will occur tomorrow. This included meeting the basic requirements of calling the convention to order, adopt rules and party platform, etc. The session tomorrow will start at 3:00 and conclude by 5:30 PM CT.

As to planned activities for Tuesday, they intend to wait and see and then decide how to proceed. They also plan to have their finance committee do what they can to raise money for the charities in the gulf states that will be doing relief work and assistance. The only legal requirement that must occur at the Convention is a roll call formally nominating the Republican President and Vice-President candidate.

Earlier, President Bush and Vice-President Chaney announced they would not attend the Republican Convention on Monday due to the Hurricane. President Bush had been scheduled to speak.