When the rest of the convention is cancelled, what are you left with?

Newt Gingrich started his seminar on "Obamacare" with a tribute to Neil Armstrong. Of course he did. The non sequitur spoke to the improvisational nature of this would-be first day of the Republican National Convention, hijacked by forces of nature – a category that should include Newt Gingrich's hair, in addition to his ego.

Grinch was speaking at "Newt U", an official but ancillary event that escaped cancellation. Similar seminars and panels made for a full-enough day that the absence of a larger structure wasn't entirely obvious. One noticed it more in the aimlessness of those who bothered to show up to the convention hall. Reporters, mostly, but also vaguely shell-shocked delegates, craning their necks at the "DC celebrity" transplants (I'd name them, but then I'd have to explain who they are) smiling gamely into cell phone cameras.

The metaphors available in Tampa to explain the current state of the Republican party are easier to grasp than the purpose of the convention itself. (Losing a day with no admitted effect on the end result only suggests that there was at least 25% too much convention to begin with.) The RNC's first day was shut down because of a chaotic event beyond the organizers' control? Let me show you some Ron Paul supporters. And then there are the gusts blowing convention-goers off course: surely Todd Akin is responsible for that. Finally, the driving rain: no longer able to rely on the old "culture war" verities to energise both base and swing voters, the GOP finds itself in a fluid situation – trying to catch and carry water in the palm of its hand.

Romney has wisely refused to pick much of a fight on gay marriage and preferred to major on the economy, but how can you get people riled up to vote out the incumbent when your own nominee's favorite prop is a white board and not a flag?

Gingrich's Obamacare seminar and moon landing celebration was a part of "Newt U", an attempted co-optation of whatever energy is left to Gingrich's insurgent campaign and a further example of Republicans' quest for a cohesive secular theology to match the more uniform religious one. Newt U is intended to "examine the convention's daily themes in greater detail and give delegates an opportunity to dive deeper into those issues": issues, yes; proposed policies, no.

Hampered by Romney's own refusal to make his agenda more specific, the Gingrich panel focused on largely disingenuous criticisms of the Obama healthcare plan (such as describing the transfer of Medicare funds as a "cut") and left alternate proposals lofty and ambiguous.

"What if we took the '200,000 apps for the iPhone' model," Gingrich asked, and "asked [Americans] to develop a better solution for Medicare." I wonder if that would be based on Angry Birds or Twitter. (Gingrich is a noted Apple fan and obviously enamored of what he probably thinks of as their free-market approach; I guess he hasn't read their end user agreement.)

Arguments about Medicare are attractive because of the voter base potentially swayed, but it's actually a tangential issue for the large majority of Americans. The Romney campaign has admitted that every day they're not talking about jobs is a day that they lose, but they cannot agree on a way to talk about the economy beyond disparaging Obama's handling of it.

"I think the fiscal issues we face are so big and so overwhelming that there's little reason to focus on the other things," House Representative Jeff Flake told the New York Times. But they're not just overwhelmed, they're confused. Take the latest rallying cry from another erstwhile would-be president, Herman Cain.

"It's worse to imagine a world with Obama getting a second term than it is to imagine a world without pizza," as he told Time, Monday. "Because with Obama in a second term, there will be no pizza. For anyone."

Yes, Republicans are making heavy weather of this election season.