Three Main Convention Goals : GOP Hopes to Portray the Bush It Knows and Loves

Welcome to Round Two of the 1988 national political conventions.

The gavel falls here Monday for the Grand Old Party, and George Bush and his Republicans finally get their four days in the limpid eye of television--precious Prime Time to answer front-running Democrats, to sling it back like they took it in Atlanta a month ago.

Most of all, the 1988 Republican National Convention is a chance for the party to present George Bush as the true believers see him, not as others portray him.

“This will be the vice president’s first chance in really 7 1/2 years to get front and center before the American people and present himself on national television for an extended period,” said campaign manager Lee Atwater. “ . . . When they get a chance to see him, they are going to like what they see. I have all the confidence in the world in that.”

The GOP’s official press guide for the 1988 convention lists 1 1/2 pages worth of assorted public relations operatives and offices on hand to make this a mistake-free, sanitized, by-the-script coronation of Bush. To name just some--there is a news media operations director, a press operations director, a director of convention communications, a convention manager of media relations and a convention press secretary.

But no profusion of pricey PR talent can erase the fact that Republicans are looking at a platter full of challenges this summer in New Orleans.

First off, they are up against Atlanta. At their mid-July convention, Democrats performed better than expected. They shook off their differences and emerged together in unity, and they ran an orderly and friction-free television show when many thought they could not.

In other words, as Atwater says: “Democrats did a pretty good job of mimicking a Republican convention.”

After all, the GOP back in 1972 under Richard M. Nixon wrote the book on how to drain political conventions of worrisome spontaneity and unrehearsed drama. Anything less this time could quickly call into question Bush’s command of the situation.

As for Bush’s speech, there appears to be some room for him to pull off a surprise. The vice president is not known as much more than a journeyman orator. A first-rate performance might get him some favorable notices.

“It’s going to go over the left-field fence,” he promised reporters when they asked about his speech.

But again, the Democrats set a high standard. Nominee Michael S. Dukakis gave the speech of his life in Atlanta. The man who was said to be emotionless brought himself to the verge of tears; and the man said to lack excitement brought his crowd to its feet again and again.

One surprise the Republicans are saving for the convention, of course, is the announcement of Bush’s running mate. That is, if Bush, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, can keep his secret from some 13,500 credentialed news media reporters, photographers, executives and technicians massing in New Orleans.

No Apologies

GOP strategists make no apologies: They want the announcement held back to build suspense. By their calculations, maybe 5 million or more additional Americans might stay tuned to their TV sets if their curiosity is piqued from a couple of days of frenzied rumor mongering and wild speculation.

“Maximum viewing audience,” explains Jim Lake, a Bush PR consultant.

Convention planners have set themselves three main goals in New Orleans, according to Fred V. Malek, a corporate public relations executive and former Nixon White House operative chosen by Bush to supervise the four-day program:

--”One, we need to remind the American people how successful the Reagan-Bush presidency has been--the creation of 16 million jobs, the reduction in inflation, the reduction of unemployment . . . . We’ve had six years of continued economic prosperity, and it’s to the point where it might be taken for granted by the American people. We think this accomplishment has to be driven home.

--”Secondly, we want to outline the Bush program for meeting the challenges of the future. He’s very concerned about the problems of the everyday American, he has a keen understanding of what these challenges are that lie ahead, and he aims to address those.

--”And the third thing we think needs to be driven home at this convention is the profound differences of the two candidates, between their backgrounds and their beliefs.”

Crossing Paths

One ticklish convention protocol was debated among Republicans for weeks. Should outgoing President Reagan cross paths with the incoming nominee here in New Orleans?

At first, Bush lieutenants wanted to keep the two apart and not risk having Reagan unintentionally upstage Bush. “Part of the transition of the convention week is creating a little separation,” said Bush chief of staff Craig Fuller.

But then, when questioners tried to read more into the matter, the two decided to cross paths briefly at the local Naval Air Station on Tuesday as Reagan is preparing to depart and Bush arrives.

Reagan will claim his moment in the spotlight at the opening televised session of the convention Monday night, with a speech and a videotape of highlights of his Administration. Tuesday’s session features the keynote speech of New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, a champion of broadening the GOP through appeals to blue-collar voters and minorities. Sprinkled throughout the program are appearances by blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinos and other ethnics to draw attention to this theme.

For instance, Earl Old Person, a Blackfoot chief from Montana, speaks briefly on Tuesday; and Ninfa Laurenzo, a Texas woman who has built a chain of taco restaurants frequented by Bush, delivers a brief talk on Wednesday. Yakov Smirnoff, whose comedy shtick is to lampoon the Soviet Union, delivers the opening Pledge of Allegiance Monday.

Also Tuesday, two of the men Bush vanquished in the presidential primaries will have a chance to speak, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. Two others will appear during morning sessions on Monday, off prime time: former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and former Delaware Gov. Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV.

Nominating Night

Wednesday is the traditional nominating night. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas delivers the nominating address with a series of seconding speeches, including ones by Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove. Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach also speaks this night.

Among other speakers named are a sprinkling of Californians, including Gov. George Deukmejian, Sen. Pete Wilson, Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands, Orange County Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez and the Rev. Edward V. Hill of Los Angeles’ Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, who is active in Republican and conservative religious circles.

The convention concludes Thursday night with acceptance speeches by Bush and his running mate.

“We’ll have a little fun, some excitement and some color,” said Mark Goode, the television producer and consultant who is producing this program. “But basically we are here to do business.”

All five Bush children will be on the convention floor as delegates, continuing competition with the Democrats for ways to display concern for families.

In one area of comparison, however, there is no comparison. And that is the size of the arena. The Superdome here could swallow up five of Atlanta’s Omni stadiums.

Rather than worry about the fire marshal locking out delegates because of overcrowding as happened in Atlanta, Republicans faced the opposite problem--would they project a feeling of vast emptiness?

One solution has been to drop the 27-story ceiling with a low-hung lighting grid, and screen off half of the seats with a giant 90-by-600-foot curtain to reduce the cavernous sensation. Overall, the finished convention area commands a strong sense of horizontal space, not the vertical lift of the Democratic hall in Atlanta. In this case, even the television network sky boxes have become floor boxes.

Numbers Craze

The huge scale of things here touched off a whole numbers craze in New Orleans: Number of acres in the Superdome’s roof, 9.7; number of miles of cable strung for the convention, 150; number of square feet of decorating fabric, 500,000; number of balloons inside the Superdome, 65.8 per delegate; number of parades so far this year in New Orleans, 170; number of bottles of Tabasco--Bush’s favorite condiment--sold in this city in a year, 1.2 million.

So important for the candidates and predictable for the press have national political conventions become that such things as color schemes become topics of discussion. For this convention, Republicans decided to keep traditional red, white and blue colors, trimmed with a little gray and a touch of gold. Democrats, it is recalled, muted their colors with “futuristic” shades of salmon and azure and ivory.

For most of each evening, the cameras will be trained on the podium, which these days becomes an exaggerated visual symbol for the entire convention.

Unlike the imposing high-rise podium the Democrats devised for Dukakis, Bush will stand atop a more austere, low-rise platform that resembles a fancy head table at a chamber of commerce luncheon.

Republican public relations engineers have advised reporters of the deepest meanings of this, apparently with complete seriousness: “The visual harmony projected by design of the podium facade reflects the unity of the diverse individuals, from across the nation, joined together at the 1988 Republican National Convention for a common purpose: To articulate the party’s vision for American’s future . . . “ And so on.

Protesters would seem to be no problem for the Republicans. At past conventions, the passions of those outside the hall have changed the chemistry within. But in New Orleans in 1988, protesters rejected the opportunity to protest near the Superdome entrance. They chose instead to gather six blocks away at Lafayette Square.

“It’s comfortable. It’s shady,” said Mark Gonzalez, a spokesman for protest organizers.