They’re moving delegates around on the floor to put more women in front of the stage before Gov. Sarah Palin speaks. The gender breakdown of Republican delegates explains the need for the seat shuffle: the number of male delegates overwhelms female delegates by 2 to 1.

Speaking of gender, NPR tonight noted that the speech originally written for the vice-presidential nominee was deemed too “masculine” and was thus rewritten when Sen. John McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

As for other demographics, in a historic shift, only 1.5 percent of the total number of delegates at the RNC are African Americans — amounting to only 36 delegates, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. It marks a sharp drop-off from 2004, when 6.7 percent, or 167 delegates, were African American. That was the all-time high.

In contrast, at the Democratic National Convention, nearly 25 percent of the delegates were African American, and slightly more than half were women (a first). The full demographic breakdown is available here.

Back at the convention, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a former Republican presidential candidate, practically did air-quotes around community organizer to minimize Sen. Barack Obama’s experience.

Meanwhile, the current Republican mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, opted out of watching Palin’s speech. His pick tonight? Whoopi Goldberg — in “Xanadu.”

Update: The Washington Post has a front-page story on the mostly white convention.