Republicans back on track after Gustav

Republicans sought today to put their Hurricane Gustav-eclipsed convention back on track with a series of speeches by political heavy weights.

• Slideshow: Republican Convention warms up

Foremost among them was President George W Bush, scheduled to speak on behalf of John McCain and his race for the presidency against Democrat Barack Obama.

While Monday's opening program at the Republican National Convention was shorn of political rhetoric out of deference to, and in solidarity with, Americans caught in the hurricane, party officials said they plan to resume normal convention activities on day two.

Bush, who had been scheduled to address the convention on its first day, had cancelled in order to be closer to hurricane preparations in Texas.

But the president, whose popularity took a pummelling three years ago for his administration's botched handling of devastating Hurricane Katrina, was to speak by satellite on Tuesday evening (US time), officials said.

His speech, along with appearances by actor and former 2008 presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, as well as Joe Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000, highlighted how Republicans were rewriting the convention's script as they go along after Gustav forced a rethink of earlier plans.

The inclusion of Thompson - best known by most voters for his role as the district attorney on the hit television show Law & Order - as speaker seemed to suggest that Republicans were easing back into partisan politics with an appeal to independent-minded voters.

Bush's unpopularity has left McCain doing a delicate balancing act, and the decision on Bush's role in the convention appeared to rest with the candidate's campaign.

McCain's camp has tried to distance the White House hopeful from the president while Democrats have laboured to drive home the message that the veteran Arizona senator only offers Americans a continuation of Bush's policies.

Aides said McCain probably would deliver his nomination acceptance speech in person as scheduled on Thursday.

While Gustav hamstrung Republicans with its ironically timed collision with the US Gulf Coast - about three years to the day after Katrina - initial reports showed the storm was not as devastating as feared, and the party quickly turned its attention back to reintroducing McCain to Americans.

But in keeping with the more subdued tone, it appeared that attacks on Obama would be tempered.

Lieberman, who left the Democratic Party after losing a Senate primary, told CNN that he would not "spend any time tonight attacking Senator Obama."

Instead, the independent who has angered Democrats with his attacks on Obama, said he would explain "why I am an independent Democrat voting for Senator McCain."

Weaker than expected, Gustav hit the heart of Louisiana's oil and fishing industries but appeared to spare New Orleans the catastrophic flooding of Katrina.

Still, its political impact was unclear. For a day at least, the storm denied McCain the nonstop news coverage that Obama enjoyed during the Democrats' four-day convention last week in Denver, Colorado.

Obama also scaled back his political activities and turned his attention to the Gulf Coast region. After stops in Michigan and Wisconsin, he was returning to his Chicago headquarters to monitor the storm's progress and decide his schedule for the rest of the week. He urged supporters to donate to the American Red Cross.

Republicans, however, faced a new test.

Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old mother of five who McCain picked as his vice presidential running mate, announced hours before convention began on Monday that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

It also was disclosed Monday that an attorney had been hired to represent Palin in a state ethics probe and that her husband, Todd, had been arrested for drunken driving two decades ago.

McCain's campaign aides said the statement was issued to rebut internet rumours that the governor's four-month-old baby was, in fact, Bristol's.

In Monroe, Michigan, Obama condemned rumours involving the children of candidates and echoed the McCain campaign argument. "I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits," the Illinois senator said.

The man who led McCain's vice presidential search team said he thought everything that had come up as a possible red flag during the background check had now been made public.

"I think so," Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. told The Associated Press. "Yes. I think so. Correct."

McCain told reporters that "the vetting process was completely thorough and I'm grateful for the results."

Palin, the first Republican woman ever picked to share the presidential ticket, is a strong anti-abortionist, and her selection was seen as boosting McCain's support among the party's base of Christian conservatives, many of whom have been reluctant to back him.

Prominent religious conservatives issued statements of support after she said the teen would marry the father, who was identified in news reports as 18-year-old Levi Johnston.

The decision to hire a lawyer for Palin stems from an investigation into whether the governor fired Alaska public safety commissioner Walt Monegan after he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced Palin's sister.

In July, a legislative oversight committee approved $US100,000 ($NZ146,000) to investigate whether Palin abused her power.

For a second day on Tuesday, however, Palin had no public events scheduled.

As Republicans assembled, the Iraq war was likely to get a second day of attention on Tuesday as US Representative Ron Paul, a former Republican presidential candidate who opposes the war, was expected to speak to supporters at a Minneapolis rally.

Separately, a group advocating for the poor was planning a protest march toward the convention centre.

A day earlier, protesters outside the convention venue smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles, and there were reports that delegates from Connecticut were attacked as they stepped off their bus to attend the day's convention session.

The main anti-war march was peaceful, police said, estimating about 10,000 people participated. But after the anti-war marchers had dispersed, police used pepper spray on splinter groups of demonstrators near downtown.

Authorities reported making at least 250 arrests, including 119 people who faced possible felony charges.