PITTSBURGH, PA - As Hurricane Gustav barrels in on New Orleans, Sen. McCain and the RNC said today that they are closely monitoring the storm and open to suspending or canceling portions of the upcoming convention.

McCain told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace in an interview set to air tomorrow that he is concerned about the storm, which is on a path to hit New Orleans late Monday or early Tuesday–one day into the convention.

“I’m afraid Chris that we may have to look at that situation and we’ll try to monitor it. I’ve been talking to governors Jindal, Barbour, Reilly, Crist, I’ve been talking to all of them, but you know it just wouldn’t be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster. So we’re monitoring it from day to day and I’m saying a few prayers too,” McCain said during a pretaped interview in Pittsburgh today.

The presumptive GOP nominee has sought to distinguish himself from President Bush on the campaign trail and has been extremely critical of the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, which hit three years ago this week.

During a conference call with reporters today RNC Deputy Chairman Frank Donatelli said the GOP is “very, very aware of the situation” and will take “appropriate programmatic action to recognize that potential situation.”

Though Donatelli said postponing the RNC is not in the cards.

“I don’t think that is a possibility. To postpone a convention is much more difficult than you might think,” he said. “I am not sure that would be the preferred method. I do believe there are other methods to deal with that potential situation so that we recognize and show the gravity of the situation and still do our business.”

DUBLIN, OH — John McCain once joked that a Vice President has just two duties: breaking tie votes in the senate and inquiring daily as to the health of the president. But on the campaign trail, a VP nominee has one more big role — helping his or her running mate get elected.

As Barack Obama said last night in Beaver, PA, his partner Joe Biden brings foreign policy and legislative experience to the ticket. But his background as a kid from the hardscrabble Northeast Pennsylvania town of Scranton didn’t hurt either, as Obama tries to reach out to working class voters across the country — a demographic he’s had a tough time reaching.

Biden also helps in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. In Denver last week, the Delaware Senator told Pennsylvania delegates that he’d be going home early and often; in fact, his first campaign stop without Obama on Monday will be in Scranton. The campaign released an ad - emphasizing Obama’s own tough upbringing and airing in Northeast PA — to coincide with the visit
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The campaign released the following details Friday about the McCain-Palin relationship and how the runningmate offer was finalized this week:

“John McCain first met Governor Sarah Palin at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in February of 2008 and came away extraordinarily impressed. John McCain followed her career and admired her tenacity and her many accomplishments. She was scheduled for a high profile speaking role at our convention and included in the VP selection process because of his admiration for her strong reform credentials. Last Sunday, Governor Palin and John McCain had a conversation over the phone. Governor Palin was at the Alaska State Fair, and John McCain was at his home at Phoenix. Previously, Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager, had also been in regular contact with the Governor as part of the on-going selection process. This past week, Governor Palin arrived with Kris Perry in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Wednesday evening. Upon arrival, Governor Palin and her longtime aide Kris Perry met with Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter of the McCain campaign at Mr. Bob Delgado’s home in Flagstaff. Mr. Delgado is the CEO of the Hensley corporation, which is Mrs. Cindy McCain’s family business. On Thursday morning, Governor Palin and staff were joined by Mrs. Cindy McCain and later joined by John McCain at the McCain family home in Sedona, Arizona. At approximately 11:00 a.m. Thursday August 28, 2008, John McCain formally invited Governor Sarah Palin to join the Republican ticket as the vice presidential nominee on the deck of the McCain family home.

Later that morning, John McCain departed for Phoenix and Governor Palin departed with staff to Flagstaff, Arizona. Governor Palin, Kris Perry, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter proceeded to the Manchester Inn and Conference Center in Middletown, Ohio. They were checked into the hotel as the Upton Family. While there, Governor Palin’s children, who had been told they were going to Ohio to celebrate their parents’ wedding anniversary, were told for the first time that their mother would be a nominee for Vice President of the United States of America.

Today, John McCain was proud to announce that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a proven-reformer, will share a partnership with him to shake things up in Washington and to make government more effective for American families.”

By John Flannery, Democratic Virginia delegate

Some of our citizens, young and old, had their protests muffled and contained, and I thought that was wrong.

Outside the covention center, there were “cages” designated for “protesting.”

The name alone should give anyone pause.

What do you say to someone who wants to “protest”?

Would you please enter the “cage,” sir, or madam, if you want to “protest”?

That plainly diminishes any one’s dignity and coerces and chills what may be said.

A “cage” denotes and connotes restraint, captivity, control and containment and usually of an animal that we think is “dangerous” and/or “undeserving” of too much freedom.

It seems somewhat ironic to “contain” or “compromise a protest against the Iraq war outside the Pepsi Center when we were objecting to that same war inside the convention.

But the point is not whether the various 1st amendment exertions of speech in these parallel venues are congruent or not, whether they be comments on the war, or fluoridation, or the home heating plan of Senator McCain.

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By John Flannery, Democratic Virginia delegate

America began a forced march to restore its historic legacy in Denver last night when an army of 80,000 people, in a mile-high stadium, shouted as in one voice that we had had enough and made a promise to change all that this November.

We have set out to end the Joycean nightmare from which the nation has appeared unable to awake - to cure economic stagnation and end military adventurism - policies that have compromised this nation’s vitality.

On the anniversary of a dream, “too noble to ever die,” by the lights of one speaker, proclaimed long ago at the Lincoln memorial by Martin Luther King, by a man who gave his life for that dream, a dream only partly realized even today, we re-dedicated ourselves to the promise made in the pristine words of the American constitution, to fulfill that promise made to every American by our founders, that we all are truly equal before the law and before our government, and set ourselves a path to quench “the flames of withering injustice” that have made a lie of that historic promise.

The excited and hopeful crowd in the stadium joined with the millions watching and hearing this convocation from across the nation and bound their souls to ours to put an end to the shame and disgrace that this young democratic experiment has suffered for too long.

This stadium and this event became the focus of hope for the many who have realized how parched they’ve become, how thirsty they are for fairness and truth, after eight years of political drought.

There is hardly a person who has eyes to see and a mind that can think who would disagree that we are struggling to experience, in the words of King, “a joyous day break to end the long night.”

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COLUMBUS, OH — During their first joint campaign stop on the trail, new McCain runningmate Gov. Sarah Palin briefly defended her experience in elected office, telling reporters that the is prepared to go from Juneau to Washington.

“I’ve appreciated the 13 years in elected office that I’ve had to give me some good experience to get ready for this job. It’s been good experience,” she told reporters who shouted questions at the Alaska Governor during the Republican ticket’s trip to the Buckeye Corner, an Ohio State University sporting goods shop.

McCain and Palin appeared at the shop with their families hours after Palin was first introduced to the country at a Dayton rally.

During an interview with People Magazine this afternoon McCain–who has made experience a key argument of his candidacy–defended his new running mate despite the fact she has has spent only 20 months as Alaska’s governor.

“I don’t think it’s a short resume. She first ran for office back in 1992. I don’t know what Senator Obama was doing then, but the first time she ran was 1992,” McCain said–taking a shot at this Democratic rival. “That’s 16 years. I think that’s a pretty, pretty event-filled and record-filled resume.”

She previously served as on the Wasilla City Council and as mayor of the Alaska town.

Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the groundbreaking woman in this race; instead, after an eventful convention, she’s relegated to the sidelines — while the almost universally unknown governor from Alaska makes a bid for the female voters aides said Clinton would garner in record numbers.

HRC issues a tepid statement — pro-diversity, anti-GOP. “We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin’s historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Senator McCain,” she says. “While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Governor Palin will add an important new voice to the debate.”

Ex-Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson blogs that, with the Palin pick, “you are going to have a lot of women voters wondering why Senator Obama didn’t tap Senator Clinton as his running mate.”

St. Paul, Minn.–

Want to check out the Fox News Experience at the Republican National Convention? Let me take you on a tour. Click below!

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Democrats are taking aim at McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the VP slot on the ticket, with a number of leaders questioning her readiness for office.

Statement by Obama spokesman Bill Burton:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”

Statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin raises serious questions about his judgment. Why, when the country is fighting two wars, facing an uncertain economy and an energy crisis, did Senator McCain make the choice that he did? Why, with so many other qualified women and men in his party, did John McCain choose Sarah Palin? Sarah Palin is not the right choice.”

Statement Sen. Chuck Schumer:

“After the great success of the Democratic convention, the choice of Sarah Palin is surely a Hail Mary pass. It is a real role of the dice and shows how John McCain, Karl Rove et al realize what a strong position the Obama-Biden team and Democrats in general are in in this election. Certainly the choice of Palin puts to rest any argument about inexperience on the Democratic team and while Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling. I particularly look forward to the Biden-Palin debate in Missouri.”

However, the McCain campaign is responding by not only by arguing that Palin is more qualified for the Oval Office than Barack Obama but that the Democrat’s campaign is looking down on small town voters by discounting her mayoral experience.

Campaign spokesman Jill Hazelbaker: “It is pretty audacious for the Obama campaign to say that Governor Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match. Governor Palin has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and actually achieving results — whether it’s taking on corruption, passing ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for President.”

The campaign’s Michael Goldfarb adds: “She’s the Governor of Alaska and was the mayor of a small town, meaning she has more executive experience than Barack Obama and Joe Biden put together. But more than that, given Barack Obama’s comments earlier this year that small-town Americans “cling” to guns, religion, and xenophobia out of economic anxiety, it’s troubling that Obama’s campaign has now attacked Governor Palin for having been the mayor of a small-town, as if that wouldn’t qualify her to carry Senator Obama’s bags.”

Before the Obama campaign sent out a statement on behalf of the Democratic ticket congratulating McCain’s new running mate — before they described the Alaska governor as “admirable” — and before they called the announcement “yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics,” the Obama campaign struck the first blow on the new Republican candidate.

More than an hour prior to laudatory statements, Obama spokesman Bill Burton implied the little known 44-year-old governor with less than two years in office was not qualified to be president and tied her to the Bush/McCain brand of politics. “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” Burton said in the statement.

Later at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Obama was asked about the dual sentiments. “I think that campaigns start getting these hair triggers, and the statement that Joe and I put out reflects our sentiments,” he explained.

The candidate proceeded to call her a “compelling person” and complimented her for hitting up against “that glass ceiling” - the same one Hillary Clinton attempted to shatter - but said, “I’m sure that  she will help make the case for the Republicans.  Unfortunately, the case is more of the same. And so ultimately John McCain is at top of ticket…I think that he wants to take the country in the wrong direction. I’m assuming Gov. Palin agrees with him in in his policies.”

Biden, who had been standing beside Obama, piped up, “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”