GOP: Detailed Convention Agenda

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/po...repubs.html?hp


G.O.P. Vows to Offer Detailed Agenda at Its Convention
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: August 22, 2004


ASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - President Bush will present what aides say will be a detailed second-term agenda when he is nominated in New York in 10 days, part of an ambitious convention program built on invocations of Sept. 11 and efforts to paint Senator John Kerry as untrustworthy and out of the mainstream.

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

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And after months in which Mr. Bush stressed issues of concern to conservative supporters - from restrictions on stem cell research to a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage - the convention will offer its national television audience a decidedly more moderate face for the president and his party. If "strength" was the leitmotif of the Democratic convention in Boston, "compassion" will be the theme in New York, marking the return of a mainstay of Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign, party leaders said.

Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia who has become increasingly estranged from his party, will lead a prime-time televised lineup of speakers as notable for who is not there (conservative Republican leaders) as for who is (Mr. Miller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the moderate Republican governor of California). And Republicans are pressing for a quick and quiet adoption of a platform to minimize dissent over issues that have divided the party, in particular immigration restrictions and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Most of all, Mr. Bush's aides said that after five months in which they have focused almost exclusively on attacking Mr. Kerry, the president will use his speech to offer what they asserted would be an expansive plans for a second term, in an effort to underline what they argued was Mr. Kerry's failure to talk about the future at his own convention.

"This speech has to lay out a forward-looking, positive prospective agenda," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior political adviser. "It has to show - and to defend in a way the American people want to hear - his policies on the war on terror."

Mr. Bush's advisers offered no details on what he might propose, and even some Republicans said the White House might be constrained both by the deficit and resistance among Republicans on spending.

Still, Ed Gillespie, the national Republican chairman and a senior Bush campaign adviser, argued that Mr. Kerry had missed an opportunity at his convention by spending too much time talking about his biography and Mr. Bush, reflecting an attempt by Mr. Kerry to use his convention to present himself as strong enough to carry the nation through a time of war.

"They left people feeling hungry for substance," Mr. Gillespie said. "We will not make that mistake in New York. We will come out of there with specific proposals for the future for a new term."

The emerging goals for the four days in New York signal that this White House has adopted an ambitious political agenda for a nominating convention that Republicans describe as a critical moment for Mr. Bush's campaign. It comes as many Republicans have grown increasingly worried about Mr. Bush's prospects for re-election, with some saying the campaign appears uncertain as it seeks to knock back a challenge from Mr. Kerry, a candidate many Republicans describe as less than overwhelming.

"If they were running against a Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, nominee, they'd be down 10 points,'' said one Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being accused by fellow Republicans of disloyalty. "But they're not. They have the advantage of running against a guy who is basically a liberal from Massachusetts."

To a large extent, Mr. Bush's aides said, they were orchestrating a convention that would be as much about celebrating the nation and what they portray as its success at weathering the attacks of Sept. 11 as it would be talking about Mr. Bush's tenure. In doing that, aides said, they were seeking to turn around the damaging perception among many Americans that the country is heading in the wrong direction, in the calculation that renewed confidence about the future would translate into support for Mr. Bush.

A CBS News poll this week found that 53 percent of registered voters felt the nation was heading in the wrong direction, a dangerously high number for an incumbent.



Pt. 2

For all the ambitions expressed by the White House for this convention, Democrats and even some Republicans expressed skepticism that Mr. Bush would in fact be able to lay out the kind of dramatic or ground-breaking second-term agenda that his aides are now promising. In 1996, for example, President Bill Clinton used a succession of what his own aides described as small-bore ideas - such as requiring school uniforms - as way of creating the perception that he was offering a grand plan for a second term, and some Democrats suggested that Mr. Bush might be about to do the same thing.

"They did work - they filled the policy void and allowed him to seem on the offense,'' said Scott Reed, who was the campaign manager for Mr. Clinton's opponent that year, Bob Dole. "It looked like he was doing something.''

Mr. Bush, like Mr. Clinton, has the constraint of having been in office for four years, and many of his ideas are well-known to Americans.

At his acceptance speech in 2000, Mr. Bush pledged to implement sweeping tax cuts, and reforms to the public school system, Social Security and Medicare. But that speech was delivered at a time of relative economic prosperity and government surplus. This time, Mr. Bush is hampered by budgetary restrictions caused by the deficit, the war in Iraq and revenue losses from the tax cuts. Some Republicans, while saying they wanted Mr. Bush to lay out new ideas for the second term, warned against significant new spending, saying that might scare off the very voters Mr. Bush needs to win over, a concern that Mr. Bush's advisers said he was keeping in mind.

Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said independent voters in his state - one of the top five targets of Mr. Bush this year - were concerned about the deficit, and put off by what he described as pork barrel spending by Congress and Mr. Bush's proposal to finance a mission to Mars.

"The voter you could define as a Reagan Democrat votes both sides of the ticket - and that person is a pretty conservative person,'' Mr. Ryan said. "They see waste like that, they see spending like that, and it bothers them. Those are the people who he needs to win to win Wisconsin."

Mr. Kerry's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, disputed Republican claims that Mr. Kerry did not talk enough about the future at his convention, and scoffed at the idea that Mr. Bush would have much new to say at his convention.

"People have been hungry for substance over the past four years because of the president's failure to put forth a domestic agenda and pay attention to the home front,'' she said. "They can talk about substance all they want at the convention, but the American people won't be fooled."

Mr. Bush's aides declined to provide details of what the president would say, other than to say he was likely to lay out plans dealing with health care and probably tax reform. But they claim that his agenda would be more sweeping and ambitious than the modest scale initiatives that Mr. Clinton rolled out when he ran for re-election in 1996, the model that some Democrats suggested that Mr. Bush was trying to emulate.

"I don't think you have to worry about us talking about school uniforms,'' said one top Bush adviser.

Mr. Bush's advisers said the perceptions of the success of the convention would be set as much by what happened on the stages of Madison Square Garden as what happens outside - be it the demonstrations on the streets of New York or the reminders of the World Trade Center attack that led the White House to decide to hold the first Republican convention in New York in history.

With thousands of demonstrators coming to New York, Mr. Bush's aides said they expected competition for attention but said that posed more of a risk for Democrats than for Republicans. Even though Democrats are not involved in organizing the protests, some of the participants are almost certain to be aligned with traditionally Democratic groups, like labor and environmentalists, and Republicans made clear they would seek to link Mr. Kerry and the Democratic Party to any disorder.


pt. 3


"I think the Democrats are going to have to be careful about not letting the protesters get out of hand," Mr. Gillespie said. "The line between the official Democratic Party and labor protesters, environmental protesters and antiwar protesters is fairly blurry, and I'm not sure they want to have Democrats engaging in violence in New York against our convention. It would seem disrespectful and antidemocratic."


Another senior convention organizer said: "You know the protesters are going to be here. You know you're going to have a full story. I look at that as a wave: not a wave to stand in front of, but a wave you have got to ride."

Ms. Cutter said the Democratic Party was not involved in any demonstrations, and blamed them on Mr. Bush.

"This president has spent the last four years dividing people and never taking responsibility for his failed record and its impact on average Americans," she said. "Any protests that might take place will likely reflect that."

Mr. Bush's aides said the president would not back away from recalling the attacks of Sept. 11 in drawing a contrast with Mr. Kerry. Mr. Bush is not planning to visit ground zero while he is in New York, but an aide said the events of Sept. 11 would provide an emotional fulcrum for his nomination speech. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor, is welcoming the delegates to New York on Monday night with a speech devoted almost entirely to the events of that day, an aide said.

Bush aides said any concern they had about being accused of exploiting the issue as happened when Mr. Bush displayed images of remains being removed from ground zero in one of his first advertisements had disappeared when Democrats included a tribute to victims of the attack at their convention in Boston.

"It is the most significant event in this person's presidency,"' said Matthew Dowd, a senior Bush political adviser. "You can't not have it. It would be like Roosevelt not talking about Pearl Harbor."

Mr. Bush's aides said a central focus of the convention would be to draw what one adviser described as "sharp contrasts" intended to show Mr. Kerry as untrustworthy and a flip-flopper, as well as to highlight a record they described as out of the mainstream.

Mr. Dowd, moving quickly to hold down expectations about how much good this might ultimately do for Mr. Bush, predicted that the president would see little lift in post-convention polls because the race was so tight. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we'll be even," Mr. Dowd said, referring to post-convention polls between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry.

Other Republicans, though, appear to have higher expectations about how Mr. Bush will do after these four days in New York.

Alexander F. Treadwell, the New York Republican chairman and the host to Mr. Bush's nomination, said Mr. Kerry "got no bounce from his convention.''

By contrast, Mr. Treadwell said, "I think the president will get a significant bounce from his convention"