As recently as Saturday afternoon, Trump was scheduled to collect the Sarasota Republican Party’s Statesman of the Year award and then swoop down to Tampa for a day of wall-to-wall media interviews, meetings with top donors to Mitt Romney’s campaign and then, apparently per the presidential candidate’s request, a “surprise” publicity stunt on the convention floor. But these plans went by the wayside after convention officials canceled Monday’s events because of Tropical Storm Isaac, which is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane…

“It’s a blessing,” Pete Mackin, an alternate delegate from that state, said of Trump’s absence.

Even John Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire who has had his own problems with inept public pronouncements — he recently apologized for saying “I wish this president would learn how to be an American” — said that while Trump’s role at the convention depends on “time constraints and the kind of message that he would like to convey,” he suggested that Trump would be more comfortable somewhere else.