Bush Rallies Party With ‘Stunning Comeback’ Pledge : Convention: Reagan gibe at Bill Clinton brings cheers, while Buchanan castigates both Clinton and his wife, Hillary. A rigidly conservative platform is adopted.

A determined President Bush, arriving at the 1992 Republican National Convention to rally a party driven to the brink of panic by the apparent collapse of its political fortunes, told cheering supporters Monday: “You’re going to see the most stunning political comeback since Harry Truman gave them hell in 1948!”

“It starts right now,” Bush declared, “You know me. In politics, I’ve always done better when I fight back, when I’m behind . . . I’m going to roll up my sleeves and do what’s right for the American people and I don’t care what the polls say.”

The embattled President, evoking memories of Truman’s legendary victory over New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican, vowed to stage a similar come-back against the Democratic ticket of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and Tennessee Sen. Al Gore. “It’s going to be curtain time for that ticket,” he told supporters in an auditorium near the Astrodome.

Earlier, he had lashed out at the Democratic-controlled Congress, saying: “I’m going to go after them with a vengeance.”

The first day of the Republicans’ four-day convention, including Bush’s dramatic appearance, was designed not only to breathe new life into a deeply troubled party threatened by massive voter defections but--most specifically--to fire up the conservatives who constitute the GOP’s most militant element.

During opening sessions that focused on the “family values” theme cherished by the religious right:

* Conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, whose bitter challenge to the President during the GOP primaries threatened to split the party, drew a roar of approval from delegates when he unequivocally endorsed Bush in a vitriolic speech that castigated Clinton and his wife, Hillary, and ridiculed last month’s Democratic Convention. Buchanan called the Democrats’ New York conclave “that giant masquerade ball up at Madison Square Garden--where 20,000 liberals and radicals came dressed up as moderates and centrists--in the greatest single exhibition of cross-dressing in American political history.”

* Former President Ronald Reagan, in an emotional speech that became a farewell to the party he had led to the political heights, delivered a rhetorical thrust at Clinton that brought a thunderclap of cheers and laughter from the crowd: “This fellow they nominated claims he’s the new Thomas Jefferson. Let me tell you--I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And Governor, you’re no Thomas Jefferson.”

* Delegates adopted a rigidly conservative platform largely dictated by Christian fundamentalists who now virtually control the party on social issues. The blueprint included uncompromising opposition to abortions and limiting the rights of homosexuals.

* As part of the day’s carefully orchestrated emphasis on “family values,” Vice President Dan Quayle told a “God and Country” rally near the Astrodome that Clinton spoke on the topic for 15 minutes during his acceptance speech. “We’re making real progress in America when Bill Clinton’s talking about family values,” he said, an apparent dig at the Democratic nominee’s character that delighted the crowd.

* Edward J. Rollins, who directed Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign and managed Ross Perot’s short-lived flirtation with an independent presidential candidacy this year, told reporters the Republican Party “is in absolute panic today” and the poll numbers for GOP candidates for Congress are “dropping like a rock.”

He said “the religious right is now the core” of the party and, while they may alienate some moderates, Bush would have a difficult time holding the GOP together without them.

Bush, pumped up by the sight of 7,000 or so partisans chanting “Four More Years!” as he made his way through the auditorium adjacent to the convention hall, told the crowd that the Astrodome next door was considered the eighth wonder of the world and they should “get ready for number nine--the most stirring political comeback since Harry Truman gave them hell in 1948.”

Delivering the same sort of attack on Congress that formed the core of Truman’s upset campaign, Bush sought to tie Clinton to Democratic congressional leaders, whom he called “the sultans of the status quo.”

“Don’t kid yourselves,” Bush said. “Look at where their support is coming from--the same ossified, entrenched, change-allergic support groups out there supporting the Democratic leaders in Congress.”

“I’m going to do what Harry Truman did. I am going to take that message to change the Congress all across this country,” the President said.

Referring to Clinton’s revelation in an interview with USA Today that he had begun in a limited way to focus on how to organize a transition to a Clinton Administration, Bush said:

“I half expected, when I went over to the Oval Office, to find him over there measuring the drapes. Well, let me say, as the first shot out of the barrel, I have a message for him: Put those drapes on hold. It is going to be curtain time for that ticket. And I mean it.”

For Bush, the throng that greeted him in the Astroarena was among the most demonstrative he has encountered in weeks. Time after time, he was interrupted by shouts and applause. Supporters stamped their feet and waved hand-lettered signs: “We’re going to give Clinton an achy, breaky heart” and “Bush ‘92, Kemp ‘96, Clinton NOT” and “Go, Barbara.”

As he often does when he returns to his adopted home state, Bush put a drawl of sorts back in his voice, as when he recalled his days as a young family man in Midland, Tex., sitting around the kitchen table late at night, “and we talked about report cards--same thing y’all do.”

Bush also said, “My opponent . . . ridicules or attacks me as we talk about family values. Well, let me tell you something. We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.”

And in a line that included a reference to the musical instrument Clinton plays, Bush said the Democrats “have called our great country a mockery and sounded the saxophone of change.”

While Bush himself beat the war drums to rouse the party faithful, aides privately sought to dampen expectations that the President’s acceptance speech Thursday night would contain dramatic new proposals for tax cuts or other specific initiative.

“People should not look for a speech that introduces new and different proposals,” one senior official said. “What they should look for are very clear pictures of where we are going to take this country and the road map we are going to follow.”

It was understood that the Bush speech will not propose an immediate tax cut, but is likely to mention that as something he would like to pursue in a second term.

The tax cut issue is especially sensitive because it involves a sharp division within the GOP over how best to help the nation’s troubled economy.

Patrick Buchanan

Buchanan delivered one of the most scathing convention speeches of the modern era, extraordinary for its attack on a nominee’s wife.

“Elect me, and you get two for the price of one, Mr. Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse,” Buchanan told the delegates. “And what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have a right to sue their parents, and Hillary has compared marriage and the family as institutions to slavery--and life on an Indian reservation.”

“Well, speak for yourself, Hillary,” the conservative commentator continued. “This, my friends, this is radical feminism. The agenda that Clinton & Clinton would impose on America--abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units--that’s change all right. But that is not the kind of change America wants.”

Buchanan’s attack on Hillary Clinton came only four days after Barbara Bush rebuked GOP National Committee Chairman Richard N. Bond for similar rhetoric, saying “I don’t like attacking” a candidate’s wife. “She’s not running for office.”

Buchanan, who showed nothing but contempt for Bush during the primaries and left some doubt before the convention about how warmly he would endorse him, opened his speech to loud applause by declaring: “I want to tonight congratulate President Bush, and remove any doubt about where we stand. The primaries are over, the heart is strong again, and the Buchanan Brigades are enlisted--all the way to a great Republican comeback victory in November.”

The fiery conservative, who polled about 3 million votes in losing 33 primaries to Bush, said that while the President became the youngest fighter pilot in the Pacific during World War II, “when Bill Clinton’s time came in Vietnam, he sat up in a dormitory in Oxford, England, and figured out how to dodge the draft.”

As he called on his “Buchanan Brigades” to support Bush now, he left no doubt that he intends to remain a spokesman for ideological conservatives, especially the religious right. “There is a religious war going on in this country for the soul of America,” he said.

And, drawing an analogy with the troops that cleared the riot-torn streets of Los Angeles, Buchanan declared, “As those boys took back the streets of Los Angeles, block by block, we must take back our cities, and take back our culture, and take back our country.”

Ronald Reagan

Criticizing the Democrats for focusing on the problems plaguing the country today, Reagan told the convention: “To hear the Democrats talk, you’d never know that the nightmare of nuclear annihilation has been lifted from our sleep. You’d never know that our standard of living remains the highest in the world. You’d never know that our air is cleaner than it was 20 years ago. You’d never know that we remain the one nation the rest of the world looks to for leadership.”

Reagan, who had promised to balance the budget in his first term but instead presided over runaway budget deficits and the first trillion-dollar national debt in the country’s history, also urged that the government “get control of the federal deficit through a balanced budget amendment and line-item veto.”

His lengthy speech, largely a review of his own Administration and of changes that have occurred in the nation and the world since 1980, when he won the White House, mentioned Bush by name only a few times. But he said he “warmly, genuinely, wholeheartedly” supports Bush’s reelection.

“We know President Bush,” Reagan declared. “By his own admission, he is a quiet man, not a showman. He is a trustworthy and level-headed leader who is respected around the world. His is a steady hand on the tiller through the choppy waters of the ‘90s, which is exactly what we need. We need George Bush!”

In his speech’s main theme, Reagan said that before he took office, the world was a far more dangerous place, but “we stood tall and proclaimed that communism was destined for the ash heap of history. We never heard so much ridicule from our liberal friends.

“The only thing that got them more upset,” he said, citing a term he once used to describe the Soviet Union, “was two simple words: ‘Evil Empire.’ ”

He said “a very different America” existed almost 12 years ago, “an America with 21% interest rates and back-to-back years of double-digit inflation; an America where mortgage payments doubled, paychecks plunged, and motorists sat in gas lines; an America whose leaders told us it was our own fault; that ours was a future of scarcity and sacrifice; and that what we really needed was another good dose of government control and higher taxes.”

While Democrats call for change, “what we should change is a Democratic Congress that wastes precious time on partisan matters of absolutely no relevance to the needs of the average American,” he said.

Reagan’s declaration that Clinton is “no Thomas Jefferson” echoed one of the most famous episodes of the 1988 campaign. During the debate between vice presidential candidates that year, after GOP nominee Quayle drew a parallel with the late President John F. Kennedy, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, told Quayle--then an Indiana Senator--”You’re no John Kennedy.”

The line immediately entered the lexicon of American politics as a classic put-down of an opponent.

Summoning his wife, Nancy, to the podium at the close of his speech, Reagan added a farewell to his prepared text, telling the cheering throng: “On behalf of both of us, goodby, and God bless each and every one of you, and God bless this country--we love it” as red, white and blue balloons cascaded down from above.

The Platform

Bush forces beat back efforts by delegates supporting abortion rights to carry their fight for changes to the convention floor. The platform, which the President says he has not yet read, makes no exceptions on opposing abortion and Bush’s campaign closely monitored all attempts to change that through amendments.

Abortion-rights advocates pressed for a chance to air their views at the convention Monday, but two governors they had counted on for support--John R. McKernan Jr. of Maine and William F. Weld of Massachusetts--gave up the fight after a closed-door session with Charles Black, a senior Bush campaign adviser.

The actual adoption of the platform was cut-and-dried. When Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), chairman of the convention, put the document to a voice vote, the ayes clearly prevailed even though a strong chorus of “noes” could be heard.

Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.), one of the GOP’s leading moderates, said Monday, “I think the platform is a tragic mistake for the Republican Party. It belies our history. I think it’s bad politics for 1992 and I think it is bad politics for the future.”

The platform “paints the party very dangerously into a corner,” Green said, because unlike 1980 and 1988, when Republicans had conservative platforms and the Democrats adopted clearly liberal blueprints, this year’s Democratic campaign “is plainly pitched to win the votes of the center. Their campaign is no longer the captive of the far left.”

Ed Rollins

Rollins, at a luncheon session with reporters, said that the next three weeks will be critical for Bush’s chances of reelection and that if the President cannot narrow Clinton’s present 17-to-23 percentage point leads in various polls to 5-to-10 points at the convention, his campaign will be in deep trouble. He pointed out that in 1988, Bush, who had trailed Dukakis by 17 points after the Democratic convention, had pulled even with him by the second or third day of the GOP convention.

Rollins, whose wife Sherri is helping with the Republican convention’s television operations, said Clinton is “a helluva candidate” and it will be “disastrous” for Bush if he tries to run a mostly negative campaign.

If Bush loses among young voters, that--together with the defections of voters in other categories--the election “could turn out to be a romp” for Clinton, Rollins said.

And if Clinton does win, he said, it may be 16 years before the Republicans again capture the White House. “With the demoralization of the party,” said Rollins, describing himself as a dedicated Republican, “I don’t see that leadership that can put it back together soon if Clinton wins. It may be a long time.”

Times staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this story.