The GOP Restoration Starts Today... Snicker

So with Hurricane Gustav thankfully rerouting away from New Orleans and with the damage more minimal than expected, the Republicans will try to fire up their red meat machine in force tonight to make up for lost time. Of course, the looming hurricane didn't stop them from partying with the band "Hookers & Blow" last night.

The problem is there's another hurricane in the Gulf that could hit Florida and Georgia on Thursday, and with the GOP already on record as refraining from attacks in the midst of a natural disaster, they are constrained and in a box here. So it's kind of a hybrid convention instead of the expected full-fledged assault on Barack Obama. They had to shuffle the schedule, and tonight Unca Fred Thompson and Droopy Dog Lieberman are on tap, along with President Bush. They couldn't even dodge that bullet of having Bush associated with McCain at the convention; literally everything he says tonight can be made into 30-second TV commercials. And the behind the scenes stuff is delicious:

Almost certainly, Bush had to cancel his planned speech while Gustav loomed. But the sources say he didn't like the idea and felt pushed. Bush is described by sources as "furious" at McCain for being deprived of his last appearance before his party, which nominated him twice, as a sitting president. He believes he is being treated disrespectfully.

Shuttering the convention for a night was probably inevitable given the hurricane, but to provide a cover-up for scratching Bush and Cheney it became absolutely necessary. But once the hurricane passed, Bush asserted his primacy as president and forced his way back on the schedule to deliver a satellite speech to the convention.

McCain is desperately seeking ways to pivot from Bush, whose in-person appearance on the first night of the convention threatened to obliterate his message as a "maverick" and "reformer." Even though McCain himself would not be onstage, Bush and Cheney would have dominated the opening and underlined continuity between their administration and McCain. The cancellation of the first night of the convention is a small price to pay for their absence.

McCain's campaign is perfectly aware of the mortal danger of Bush's embrace. He has needed the president to rally the Republican base. But once he has the nomination his imperative is to project himself as an antidote to what has gone wrong with Republicanism.

This is the reason for putting Lieberman on the same night as Bush, to somehow show that McCain's Republican Party is even crazier than Bush on foreign affairs moderate and post-partisan. So much so that Lieberman has previously praised Obama to the hills, which won't be repeated tonight.

The Republicans wanted a week of sustained attacks on their opponent. But they got a muddled convention filled with distractions over hurricane on the ground and Hurricane Sarah Palin and Hurricane Bush's Ego. Not to mention that there's a 10,000-strong contingent of Ron Paul supporters having a bigger and more interesting convention right next door, which is starting to get some media attention.

There's no room at the Xcel Energy Center for maverick Ron Paul, so his acolytes have packed their cars, hitched rides on "Ronvoys" and will pitch tents at Ronstock '08 in defiance of next week's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Almost 9,800 tickets had been sold for the Rally for the Republic, being held in Minneapolis, which seeks to bring together activists who are anti-war, anti-government regulation, anti-immigration, anti-taxes, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-outsourcing, pro-individual liberty, pro-civil liberties and pro-Paul.

The Ronvoys — fleets of buses and vans carrying Paul's loyalists — were to begin arriving Saturday. A few rally-goers planned to walk from Green Bay, Wis., and join up with Paul for the final miles of their Walk4Freedom. Other attendees are driving, carpooling or flying in for the convention alternative.

The McCain camp blocked Paul from speaking on the convention floor despite his getting more votes than Giuliani or Thompson in the primaries. He's expecting 18,000 at his own rally today.

The Paul movement is the only real one in St. Paul today. The conservative movement is flailing.