McCain losing time to push security credentials
ST. PAUL - As delegates to the Republican National Convention were riveted to TV shots of water lapping over levees yesterday, they expressed hope that a potential disaster had been averted on the Gulf Coast and that their own convention could proceed with only the loss of speeches by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
That may not be much of a loss at all, given the president's very low favorability ratings - just 28 percent, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll - and the fact that Hurricane Gustav gave John McCain a chance to show that he takes natural disasters very seriously.
But the cancellation of Day One of the Republican convention may have a deeper political cost, one that pales in comparison with the potential loss of life on the Gulf Coast but one that could have an impact on the presidential race, nonetheless.
Day One wasn't going to look at the Bush-Cheney record in total, but rather at the administration's one big talking point: its record of protecting the country from another major terrorist attack. This is not only the one aspect of the Bush record that McCain enthusiastically embraces, but it's a key part of the party's argument against Barack Obama.
In praising Bush and Cheney, the Republicans hoped to paint Obama as dangerously naive: too eager to negotiate with hostile regimes, too willing to put excessive concerns about civil liberties ahead of tracking terrorists, and too quick to pull out of Iraq.
The speeches by Bush and Cheney would certainly have rekindled memories of Sept. 11, 2001, and the fears of another attack by Islamic extremists. As in 2004, Bush and Cheney would have argued that continuing the war in Iraq is a way of fighting back against extremists - of never surrendering.
But now the Republicans won't be able to sound those notes nearly as loudly. Other speakers - such as Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is scheduled to take the podium tonight, if the convention goes forward - will try to make these arguments. But the likelihood is they'll be muted by the need to talk about Gulf Coast victims and the attention that the hurricane has placed on domestic concerns.
Today's speakers will also include some who don't particularly focus on terrorism, such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is an evangelical minister, and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, whose laid-back persona is ill suited to any kind of an attack role.
Then, tomorrow, the party will nominate Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska for vice president, and she will offer the usual praise of McCain as a military hero who knows how to keep America safe. But Palin is on the ticket to shore up McCain's domestic credibility, not foreign policy. And her lack of experience makes her unlikely to address fears of terrorism with the forcefulness of Bush and Cheney.
That would leave McCain himself to sound the baleful warnings of another 9/11 - and he won't hesitate to do so, especially after Obama took him on so directly in Denver. But McCain has a lot of other items to cover in his acceptance speech, hoping to present himself as capable of rebuilding the economy, fighting a war, and securing home mortgages as well as national safety.
As the choice of Palin indicates, McCain hopes to go toe to toe with Obama as a candidate of change - offering a more sensible, less intrusive approach to tackling big problems such as energy and healthcare. But national security remains the GOP's calling card.
McCain's efforts to show sensitivity to disaster relief, gas prices, housing costs, and other domestic concerns are important only in so far as he can take some of those issues off the table, and win the election on his superior national-security credentials.
But for McCain to win, the nation needs to be focused on overseas threats. Right now, it's not. And the convention, which promised to serve as a reminder of those dangers, has lost its best opportunity to do so.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. 