{"id":213,"date":"2008-08-31T23:46:23","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T23:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html"},"modified":"2008-08-31T23:46:23","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T23:46:23","slug":"throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html","title":{"rendered":"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The TV networks are talking about the great disruption that Hurricane Gustav has caused the poor Republicans.<br \/>\nOh please!  This is great news for McCain. His main dilemma this week was how to distance himself from the Bush administration given that Bush and Cheney were going to be featured speakers at the convention.  Problem solved, thanks to Gustav.<br \/>\nThe scene of McCain down in Mississippi, pronouncing that he is putting country before party by cancelling the first day of the convention so he could lend support to the volunteers and first providers &#8212; well, that certainly does fit the Country First theme.  He&#8217;s a virtual Rudy Giuliani, down there.  Oh, and it shows his spiritual side: &#8220;We&#8217;re monitoring it from day to day and I&#8217;m saying a few prayers,&#8221; he told Fox News.  If he&#8217;s lucky, the first three days of the convention will be cancelled and he&#8217;ll get to deliver the acceptance speech on a screen from Louisiana.  He&#8217;s a bad podium speaker, and a good TV talker.<br \/>\nThe only scenario I can think of that would turn this into a negative would be if Gustav causes a major oil spill as it blasts past the oil and gas rigs. Otherwise, Gustav will be very good for McCain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The TV networks are talking about the great disruption that Hurricane Gustav has caused the poor Republicans. Oh please! This is great news for McCain. His main dilemma this week was how to distance himself from the Bush administration given that Bush and Cheney were going to be featured speakers at the convention. Problem solved,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The TV networks are talking about the great disruption that Hurricane Gustav has caused the poor Republicans. Oh please! This is great news for McCain. His main dilemma this week was how to distance himself from the Bush administration given that Bush and Cheney were going to be featured speakers at the convention. Problem solved,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-31T23:46:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch - Steven Waldman","og_description":"The TV networks are talking about the great disruption that Hurricane Gustav has caused the poor Republicans. Oh please! This is great news for McCain. His main dilemma this week was how to distance himself from the Bush administration given that Bush and Cheney were going to be featured speakers at the convention. Problem solved,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-08-31T23:46:23+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html","name":"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-31T23:46:23+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-31T23:46:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/throw-mccain-in-that-louisiana.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Throw McCain in that Louisiana Briar Patch"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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