As the New York Times reports, the folks who run the Republican Convention have a tough task. How do they project an image of change and still provide a send-off to their leader, who represents everything from which America wants to change. This decision is set against a backdrop where Bush is again slapped by the courts over his abuse of FISA, where a former Bush Appointee is donating money and time to the Obama campaign, and where Bush is appeasing the Chinese, despite human rights abuses coming to light. Yeah, the GOP is in trouble, trying to distance themselves from Bush while also honoring him at that convention. Here’s a bit of the NYTimes article:

Convention planners, the White House and the McCain campaign are wrestling with how to choreograph a proper send-off for Mr. Bush — sure, his poll numbers are in the tank, but he is still the party leader and president of the United States — while hustling him out the door in time for Mr. McCain to look like his own man.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” said Brian Jones, a former communications director for Mr. McCain’s campaign who also was a top communications strategist during Mr. Bush’s 2004 run for re-election. “Even though the president is the president, this is going to be John McCain’s convention, and you want it to be about John McCain and what his presidency would be.”

. . .

“The president’s approval rating among Republicans’ base voters who are needed for a successful McCain campaign is relatively high,” Mr. Portman said.

That is the crux of the Republicans’ 2008 convention quandary. If the imagery coming out of St. Paul looks like a McCain-Bush hug fest, the Arizona senator will turn off voters who are through with Mr. Bush and want to move past him. If the imagery looks like Mr. McCain is trying to file for some kind of Republican divorce, it will turn off party conservatives who are already skeptical of Mr. McCain.

So Republicans may just have to grit their teeth.

“The assumption would be that there will be some kind of physical handoff,” said Mr. Jones, the former spokesman for both Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain. “I think there is a sense that they would appear together. He is the sitting president; he’s still popular among hard-core Republicans; McCain has some issues with hard-core Republicans. Some people will say this was a bad way to play it, but I think it’s one of those things where you have to run through it, and do it, and embrace it.”

I’m betting that every moment that Mr. Bush spends onstage at the GOP Comvention is a moment where the GOP Senate candidates are going to grit their teeth, wishing fervently they were in their own states denying they were ever associated with Bush. Indeed, Gordon Smith of Oregon might not show for the convention, if he follows his pattern of allying with Barack Obama. Alas, Norm Coleman of Minnesota doesn’t have the option to bail from the convention, given that it is being held in his home state. All Coleman’s successful efforts to distance himself from Bush and the GOP may come to naught as Al Franken takes advantage by tying Coleman to Bush during the GOP convention. For more on the Senate problem for the Republicans, see this article in the Los Angeles Times.

So, what does John McCain decide to do in light of all these electoral problems posed by the Bush failures of the last eight years? He decides to focus on Bush’s biggest failures, or so it seems by McCain’s hiring of Rudy Guiliani’s Campaign Manager. Steve Schmidt is the former Guiliani Campaign Manager, and he exited that campaign having painted Rudy as someone who could only speak on 9/11. Let’s hope he brings the same kind of astute skills that resulted in Rudy winning ONE delegate to the GOP convention — that delegate sure is going to be lonely in Minneapolis, isn’t he? Maybe he could go to the Ron Paul convention instead.