TAMPA, Fla. - It looks to be one of the worst nightmares for planners of Mitt Romney's coronation.
At the height of the Republican National Convention this week, a potential Category 2 hurricane bearing winds greater than 100 miles per hour appears likely to slam into the Gulf Coast, perhaps close to the already battered city of New Orleans.
Searing images of wind-damaged homes, flooding and mass evacuations - all fraught with the memory of Hurricane Katrina - may well compete on television with Mr. Romney's bid to seize the initiative in his battle with President Obama for the White House.
“Images of revelry by Republicans at a time of suffering by other Americans - no party wants those optics,†said Steve Schmidt, who helped lead Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. “You have terrible awareness of all that stuff.â€
Four years ago, Mr. Schmidt and other Republicans postponed the firs t day of the Republican convention in Minneapolis as an even larger hurricane headed through the gulf toward New Orleans. Mr. Schmidt said the fact that the canceled day would have fallen on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, was foremost in their minds.
“The optics of that were not good,†Mr. Schmidt recalled.
Four years later - on virtually the same anniversary - Isaac, still a tropical storm, seems likely to miss Tampa, where as many as 50,000 delegates and journalists are gathered. After canceling Monday's activities, organizers said they were optimistic that the storm would not prevent the convention from proceeding on Tuesday.
Organizers have not yet released an updated schedule. (A conference call is planned for later Sunday afternoon.) As of midday, many of the delegates were still attempting to fly into Tampa.
But even if the logistics in Tampa are doable, the Republican party's organizers and Mr. Romney's strategists must confront the political baggage that could come with pushing ahead with the minutely-produced celebration.
They could continue with the convention on Tuesday, fitting in as many of the speakers from Monday into the remaining three days. Essentially, they would be challenging the news networks to stay with them despite the storm.
If the storm peters out in the gulf, or wreaks less damage than expected, that decision could end up being a good one, providing Mr. Romney with just the kind of attention in front of millions of viewers that his campaign has planned for.
The danger is that the storm might intensify and cause a major humanitarian disaster - and news story - even as Representative Paul D. Ryan, the vice-presidential nominee, gives his speech and then Mr. Romney formally accepts his nomination.
Planners could decide to truncate the convention even more, canceling Tuesday's activities or scaling back the festivities and s peeches on some of the other days, out of deference to the imagery coming from the gulf.
But that carries risks, too. Mr. Romney is waging what appears to be a close race against Mr. Obama, and his campaign has been counting on the impact of the convention to present his argument for change to the largest audience Mr. Romney will likely have before the election in November.
In a conference call several days ago, Russ Schriefer, a senior strategist for Mr. Romney who is producing the convention, said the week would be critically important.
“This convention is going to talk about Gov. Romney, all aspects of his life, and really highlight his leadership skills,†Mr. Schriefer said at the time.
Cutting back the convention even further would rob the campaign of a chance to make that case in the way they had been planning. It would probably mean that some high-profile speakers like Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, or Senator Marco Rubio of Fl orida, might lose their opportunity to address the convention.
That, in turn, would make it harder for Mr. Romney to present the kind of message that he wants ahead of the final nine weeks of the campaign after the party conventions.
“You want Chris Christie up there. You want to see Marco Rubio. You want Paul Ryan not to be crowded with a lot of other personalities,†Mr. Schmidt said. “There's no other moment like this in the campaign, where the party has the ability to communicate to an audience of tens of millions of people who pay attention.â€
