As many as 50,000 Republicans and 15,000 members of the media are expected to descend on the Tampa Bay area next week, and the uncertainty of predicting the track of a hurricane so many days in advance means that hotels, restaurants and convention goers may not know until this weekend whether to expect sunny skies or an outright deluge.

When it comes to that all-important forecast, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh saw more conspiracy.

“The National Hurricane Center, a government agency, [is] very hopeful that the hurricane gets near Tampa. The National Hurricane Center is Obama. It’s the National Weather Service, part of the Commerce Department, it’s Obama,” Limbaugh said on his program yesterday.