Bush to Offer New Plan to Aid Economy : Republicans: He gives no details as party heads for its convention. Others say President is likely to call for significant tax cuts.

As Republicans from around the nation headed toward Houston on Saturday for a national convention they hope will begin to revive their party’s flagging political fortunes, President Bush indicated that he will soon offer new proposals for helping the beleaguered economy.

“I’ll be making some proposals regarding the economy . . . that I think will take care of it,” Bush said in an interview with Time magazine that was released Saturday. He declined to elaborate, but Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp predicted the President would call for significant new tax cuts when he accepts his party’s nomination for a second term here Thursday.

“Clearly, the President wants to get to lower tax rates,” Kemp said on the CNN program “Evans and Novak.” The housing secretary is a strong advocate of cutting taxes to stimulate the economy.

Whether or not Bush’s proposals include a call for tax cuts, using the convention as a platform for announcing politically appealing new proposals would fit the President’s immediate strategy. He and his advisers recognize that the party conclave, which begins Monday in the cavernous Houston Astrodome, offers Bush an opportunity he cannot afford to squander.

Even with the reduced television coverage that conventions now receive, the Houston event should give Bush the largest national audience he is likely to command until the expected fall debates with Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton.

As Bush himself has acknowledged, he must try to use the convention to portray in stark terms the differences between a first Clinton Admnistration and a second Bush Administration. And he must do that in such a way that the Republican base unites enthusiastically behind him, while wavering Democrats and independents--who have been crucial to GOP presidential victories since 1968--return to the fold.

Bush, in short, “has to convince Americans that Term Two would be better than Term One,” said political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. “It’s a tall order.”

Publicly, some Republican officials sought to put a positive face on the President’s situation.

“The President hasn’t had a chance to tell his story and he’s going to get the chance and we’re going to tell it,” Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm said. “We’re going to win this game.”

Bush also predicted victory, telling Newsweek magazine: “I think there’s a fair amount of evidence that there’s frustration with me. . . . But I’m going to turn that around.”

Still, there was little of the surging buoyancy among Republicans that distinguished the Democrats at their national convention in New York a month ago. The spirits of many arriving delegates were clouded by the twin demons of the still struggling economy and widespread voter antipathy toward the incumbent President.

Republicans “have listened to the Democrats’ garbage for eight months, watched the economy slithering along for 2 1/2 years, and they are very nervous,” said GOP political consultant Eddie Mahe.

Facing a political landscape far bleaker than the party has confronted in at least a decade, even party stalwarts admitted they needed reasons to hope.

“The President needs to give a speech that instills confidence,” said Texas GOP Chairman Fred Meyer.

He must “convince the American people he has a plan for the next four years that makes sense, that moves them forward,” Kenneth M. Duberstein, Ronald Reagan’s final White House chief of staff, agreed. “He has to show fire in the belly, that he’s learned from his mistakes, and that he has the judgment, maturity, temperament and experience to be President.”

Bush acknowledged that he has got to “make clear the differences between me and the opponent, and then what I want to do to help people in this country--make life better for people in this country.”

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” to be televised today, Bush said many voters have little idea where he would lead the country in a second term because “I have declined to be in the arena until now. . . . So I know that I’ve got to make clear to the people ‘here are the things I passionately believe in. Here’s what I’ve done--the changes in the world--and here’s what I want to do in the next four years.’ ”

To that end, Bush spent Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin mountains, working on his own version of an acceptance speech that includes passages suggested by friends and aides. Meanwhile, a new team of White House speech writers--joined by Ray Price, one of former President Richard M. Nixon’s chief speech writers--put together another version.

In the eyes of many Republican activists, his first task at the convention will be dealing with the bitter aftertaste from his 1990 decision to renege on the “Read my lips--no new taxes” pledge that had been a mantra of Bush’s successful campaign for the White House in 1988.

Bush, in the Time interview, said the switch--part of an effort to break an impasse with the Democratic-controlled Congress over the budget deficit--had been a mistake in both political and economic terms.

The subsequent budget agreement with Congress did not keep the deficit from continuing to rise, but the President’s flip-flop on what had been the most unequivocal promise of his campaign infuriated conservative Republicans and damaged his credibility among voters generally.

The tax issue is not the only problem that Bush is facing within his own party. For the first time, a significant number of Republicans have made clear their unhappiness with the GOP’s opposition to abortion. Although Republicans favoring abortion rights lost their battle to soften the party’s stance on the issue in the drafting stage of the 1992 platform they hope to make a final attempt to temper the language during the convention.

Reflecting the sensitivity of the issue, some 200 anti-abortion activists and about the same number of abortion rights demonstrators staged protests Saturday at two abortion clinics in Houston. Both sides plan to continue demonstrations during the convention.

Adding to Bush’s difficulties in rallying his party is that many Republicans wish their standard-bearer were going to have a stronger running mate than Vice President Dan Quayle.

Informal surveys of delegates by news organizations found them resigned to Quayle’s remaining on the ticket. Bush still supports him, and making a change this late in the campaign would cause more problems than it solved, many delegates believe.

And Quayle’s much-publicized effort to rally the right wing by attacking the television show “Murphy Brown” for, in his view, glorifying unmarried mothers, continues to cause discord.

Country star Tanya Tucker, who is to sing at the convention and is the single mother of two, said she hopes to deliver a message to Quayle. “Hopefully, I can change his views,” she said in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight.”

Surveying the daunting tasks Bush faces, one senior campaign official harked back to challenges he has overcome in the past: his now-historic comeback in the New Hampshire primary from near-defeat in the early days of the 1988 campaign, and his roaring summer turnaround that same year after Democrat Michael S. Dukakis took a strong lead in the polls following his party’s convention.

Bush “does best looking into the abyss,” the official said. “He’s like a race horse that doesn’t run well unless the other horses are way ahead.”

The first step in such a come-from-behind effort must begin with Bush’s acceptance speech here Thursday, aides agreed.

“This is a critically important speech,” said a longtime Bush adviser. “It will have a tremendous audience. They will be looking at him, at what he has to say and how he says it. It has to show strength, leadership, the Bush of Desert Storm, but also the Bush-as-a-human being that they like.”

His task will be much more difficult than it was four years ago, said Sabato. “He’s well defined now. One speech cannot convert a public that already has an opinion about him.”

In the political handlers’ never-ending effort to shape expectations so their candidate emerges looking better than anticipated, Bush aides entered the convention week saying that they would be happy if their candidate could get a modest “bounce” out of the convention.

They were referring to a possible boost in public opinion polls that would cut into Clinton’s current lead, ranging in the vicinity of 20 to 25 percentage points.

Throughout the week in Houston, Bush and the senior Republicans--Quayle, Cabinet members, party leaders in Congress and others convention speakers--will be pursuing six overriding, often interlocking, goals:

--Re-establish the public’s trust in Bush.

For two weeks, Bush has been focusing in campaign appearances on the importance of trust, a theme that will be central this week. The aim, said campaign spokeswoman Torie Clarke, is “framing the debate and reminding people how important the job is and how crucial it is to have a seasoned person in the Oval Office, someone you can trust.”

Before that trust can be renewed, Bush advisers, Republican operatives, and conservative activists say frankly, he must own up to his turnabout on taxes. It is a step they fully expect him to take.

“He needs to address that broken promise and show he understands how much it has disillusioned people, and regain the confidence that if he’s lucky enough to get a second term, he’ll never do that again,” said Gary Bauer, who was a domestic policy adviser in Reagan’s White House.

Maybe it will even work, said Republican consultant Mahe. “People kiss and make up, even after they’ve been lied to or deceived,” he said.

--Remind voters why they liked Bush four years ago.

“Everyone needs to see George Bush-the-man again,” said campaign political director Mary Matalin. “There’s been a little diminution of the likability factor. You have to stop and remind them why they voted for us in the first place.”

“He needs to rekindle that warm, grandfatherly feeling,” said Robert G. Beckel, who ran Walter F. Mondale’s unsuccessful 1984 presidential campaign against Reagan. “Americans still have a little bit of fondness for the guy.”

--Recount the Administration’s accomplishments.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, in an unusual farewell speech to State Department employees on Thursday just after it was announced that he would become Bush’s White House chief of staff, conducted just the sort of world tour that can be expected throughout the Bush campaign, ticking off the stunning developments of the past four years: the fall of communism, the unification of Germany, the start of Middle East peace talks and the scaling back of the nuclear arms race.

Next, Baker promised, “President Bush targets America.”

It was a telling look at the campaign’s new approach, officials said afterward, and represented the flip side to Clinton’s argument that progress abroad was contingent on economic security at home. In effect, Bush will argue that what he accomplished abroad during his first term opens the way for important accomplishments at home during a second term.

Look for the convention to try to use Bush’s strength in foreign policy to explain why “he didn’t pay attention to domestic policy” during the first term, said a senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“Piece of cake,” the senior White House official said, sarcastically.

--Instill doubts about Clinton.

“There will be a number of speakers at the convention who will be laying the lumber on Clinton,” said one senior Republican, portraying the Arkansas governor and his running mate, Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, as “liberals (who) don’t have the maturity and experience to lead the country. They’ll scare the hell out of people about Clinton and Gore, and their congressional cronies.”

Bush continues to insist he will not attack Clinton on personal issues, although some members of his team have continued to do so despite White House protestations of displeasure.

“My view is to leave it off the record,” Bush told Time when asked about questions of presidential candidates’ personal conduct. “If there is evidence that someone has betrayed the public trust, well, then ask him about it. But I just think there’s too much sleaze.”

--Persuade voters that Bush does have a vision of where he would like to take the country in a second term.

“He’s got to define himself, to do what most politicians would have done four years ago (when first running for the office),” said a senior Bush campaign official. “He’s never had to define himself, and now that he has been defined, people aren’t happy with it.”

“You should see a very clear road map of what lies ahead for the country, and how we’re going to get there,” Clarke said.

In this regard, said Ken Khachigian, a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns who is managing Bruce Herschensohn’s Senate campaign in California, the White House needs to prepare specific initiatives in the coming weeks for tackling the economic problems perceived as most pressing.

“There needs to be some actual items on the table and they ought to be telegraphed at the convention and put on the table immediately afterward,” he said.

--Officials within the campaign and White House structure--as well as such independent observers as the University of Virginia’s Sabato--say Bush must convey a sense of vigor and purpose.

Bush and his team must leave the voters with the impression “that he is up to the job physically and emotionally,” Sabato said.

“We want to get out of the convention a recognition that the President’s ready to fight for what he believes in, and fight for a second term, with specific programs and objectives and policies in mind,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said.

It should be “a clear, true send-off to the campaign,” said one adviser.