I’ve just arrived in the Twin Cities, where Sen. John McCain had suspended most of today’s official convention activities in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. From what I’ve been reading, many of the scheduled parties here this week have been continuing, although some have been converted into fundraisers for hurricane victims.

From the Washington Times’ Jennifer Haberkorn:

Many of the events, parties and fundraisers scheduled for this week for the Republican National Convention have been redesigned into fundraisers to benefit Gulf Coast residents dealing with Hurricane Gustav.

The liquor industry, which planned to host a party Monday night in Minneapolis, changed the name of its party from Spirits of Minneapolis to Spirits of the Gulf Coast.

The group of sponsors, which include the Distilled Spirits Council, Daimler, Amgen, Lockheed Martin and others, issued an e-mail before the party asking attendees to make a donation to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund and promising to match contributions.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Brody Mullins:

Campaign aides have been reaching out to corporate party planners today and asking them to turn the dozens of nightly cocktail hours, concerts and boozy bashes into fund-raising events. The McCain campaign has emailed forms to party organizers with donation pledge forms the campaign wants distributed at the parties.

I’ll be venturing out later to check out some scheduled parties for tonight. Stay tuned.

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