John McCain on Monday all but converted his presidential convention into a fundraising event for victims of hurricane Gustav and Republican officials said it was too early to decide whether the Minneapolis event would return to its full schedule later in the week.

Acutely sensitive to giving any impression of conducting politics as normal, the McCain campaign asked that all party events in Minnea­polis instead raise money for residents of the Gulf coast at the other end of the Mississippi river. Mr McCain, who is still expected to deliver his “country first” acceptance speech in Minneapolis on Thursday night, visited a relief centre in Ohio yesterday after having stopped off in the state of Mississippi on Sunday.