Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the botched reaction to is became one of the darkest moments of Bush administration in 2005. So today Republicans are not going to make the same mistake. McCain could not risk a single television image or photo of a delegate enjoying himself or herself, festooned in buttons or waving partisan signs, juxtaposed against images of hurricane survivors fighting for their lives.

“I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated,” he said from St. Louis, Mo., in a statement beamed into the convention centre here and to a national audience via cable news networks.