ST. PAUL—Mark Elridge is taking a week off from his usual job as a manufacturing engineer in the hopes of making more money driving a cab in St. Paul and Minneapolis over the Republican National Convention. So far the decision isn’t paying off, he says.  “I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m underwhelmed.”

Whether it’s Hurricane Gustav or the long Labor Day weekend, St. Paul is looking like a ghost town with delegates and curious locals putting around Rice Park near the XCel Center. The Twin Cities hoped to get a $150-160 million boost from the R.N.C., which was supposed to bring 2,800 jobs to the area. On the eve of the convention, though, there isn’t much going on in either city to be on track to reach those numbers.  

Since Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, announced plans Sunday afternoon for a scaled-down convention because of Gustav’s march to the Gulf Coast, vendors and sponsors inside the convention center are doing what they are told—to sit tight, go along as scheduled, and await further instruction.

Davis did not know how much St. Paul and Minneapolis stand to lose if the four-day convention is cut short. The $53 million in cash the R.N.C. has on hand will still go into the scheduled activities and parties, which will shift focus from party rhetoric to fundraising for disaster relief for the Gulf Coast.

Anxiety is high over the incoming of Gustav for the large number of construction workers and supervisors from New Orleans who work for the convention’s general contractor, Freeman Corp. A construction supervisor who asked not to be identified is anxiously getting updates from his wife who evacuated New Orleans last night.

He says it took her over 20 hours to drive from their home in New Orleans to a hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee—a distance of a little under 500 miles. He does not expect the convention to be canceled and says that Freeman Corp will begin to close up shop as planned—after Thursday.

Joanna Hjelmeland, a spokesperson for Qwest Communications—a $6 million sponsor of both national political conventions—says that the phone and internet provider has a contingency plan in place in case the convention is canceled, but is not changing operations in preparation of that happening.

But parties at the R.N.C. are changing their tune, by turning into fundraisers for Gulf Coast relief. Sunday night’s Spirits of Minneapolis party hosted in part by the Distilled Spirits Council, a lobbying group for the liquor industry, has been changed to the Spirits of the Gulf Coast, with donations to benefit the Red Cross encouraged.

The Republican National Convention gets some storm damage from Hurricane Gustav, but what's the political impact to John McCain's presidential campaign? Washington editor Matthew Cooper sizes it up.