A Convention Without an Audience Is Still a Convention

MADISON, Wis. - Republicans didn't cancel their convention this week. Gustav did — and in doing so, the storm handed the party an accidental gift: an excuse to skip four days of defending an indefensible record.

Let us be clear about what was removed from the schedule. President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the two least popular figures in American political life, were to address the convention on its opening night. Their absence is not a sacrifice; it is a mercy the party could not have arranged for itself.

What remains is the harder problem. The Republican platform — war without end, tax cuts without limit, government small enough to drown in a bathtub or, as it were, a bowl city — cannot be repackaged in a two-hour business session. It can only be avoided.

Senator McCain is a more interesting figure than his party deserves, and his genuine decency toward the storm's victims is not in question. But decency is not a platform, and "Country First" is not a plan for a country where 47 million people lack health insurance and the Treasury stands behind the mortgage market.

The storm will pass. The record will remain. And on Nov. 4, the American people will render a verdict on more than meteorology.

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