Gustav Crashes the Party

This was to be the day of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Arnold Scwharzenegger. Instead, it’s a day of bare-bones party business and Hurricane Gustav.

John McCain has turned to Mississippi and the Gulf Coast — brand new VP pick, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, at his side. Nearly two million have fled the storm. Politics are on hold, sort of. Storms make politics, too.

This hour: Republicans, riding the wind, with voices from New Orleans, Alaska, and right here in St. Paul.

You can join the conversation. Could you have imagined a wilder start to a GOP convention? In the anniversary week of Katrina, does Gustav work for or against John McCain? Does Sarah Palin sink or swim? Let us know what you think.Guests:

Joining us from New Orleans is David Hammer, reporter for The Times-Picayune. Read the latest hurricane news from New Orleans here.

Joining us from Fairbanks, Alaska, is Dermot Cole. He's a columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. You can read his recent columns at newsminer.com.

With us at the Xcel Center in St. Paul is Matthew Continetti, associate editor at The Weekly Standard and author of "The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine." His op-ed "Two-Front Republicans," about Sarah Palin and the Republican Party, appeared in The New York Times on Saturday.

Also here in St. Paul, we're joined by Nina Easton, Washington editor for Fortune magazine, where she writes the Power Play blog, political analyst for Fox News, and author of "Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy."

And we're joined here by Mark Halperin, editor-at-large and senior political analyst at Time magazine. He writes The Page, Time.com's up-to-the-minute campaign news update. You can read his analysis of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin here.

Watch Gov. Sarah Palin's speech in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday, accepting John McCain's invitation to be his running mate:

Watch part two of the speech here: