Bush, Quayle Renominated; President Lauded as a Battler : Republicans: Attacks on Democrats continue, but acceptance speech by President remains key to convention. Talk by First Lady stresses family values.

Delegates to the 1992 Republican National Convention renominated President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle Wednesday night after three days of savage attacks on the Democrats designed to give a lift to the embattled GOP ticket.

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, who placed Bush’s name before cheering delegates inside the Astrodome, declared that the President has fought battles for women’s rights and to help the disabled, and that he “fights for humanizing our health care, for real pension reform, for investments in research and answers to life’s real nightmares.”

But, she said, “he knows the more you talk, the less you get done,” and he “knows it means he hasn’t received credit . . . often means he has taken blame and he knows we haven’t even known about some of the battles.”

Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, she said, is “the latest in the long line of whimpering naysayers”--Democrats who offer only “the crass politics of fear and the false promise of change.”

It is not clear whether the convention will give Bush the boost GOP strategists are counting on. Polls show little change thus far in the huge lead enjoyed by Clinton. And some Republicans questioned whether the ceaselessly harsh attacks on Clinton, his wife, Hillary, and congressional Democrats might turn off the moderates and independents Bush needs to win.

Yet the key to the convention remains the acceptance speech Bush will deliver tonight. He devoted most of Wednesday to preparing for what may be the most critical moment in his long political career.

Barbara Bush, in an unprecedented convention appearance by a First Lady that was expected to partially offset the partisan tone of other speakers, wowed the delegates Wednesday night with a folksy address that stressed family values and described her husband as “the strongest, most decent, the most caring, the wisest--and yes, the healthiest--man I know.”

Mrs. Bush was joined on the podium by her five children, their spouses, 12 grandchildren and--unexpectedly--the President himself. He hugged members of his family and kissed his wife, but did not speak to the crowd.

There were these developments Wednesday:

* White House strategists said Bush had rejected suggestions that he unveil new economic initiatives during the convention. They said he feared calling for an immediate tax cut or spending curb would be dismissed as a political ploy. Instead, he will outline a longer term plan for economic recovery.

* An ABC News-Washington Post poll released Wednesday, the first nationwide survey conducted since the convention began, suggested that the harshly partisan tone of the conclave has given Bush no lift. Indeed, the survey showed him dropping two percentage points in the last week, trailing Clinton by 58% to 33% among likely voters. The drop was within the survey’s margin of error, apparently leaving the race essentially unchanged.

* In a speech that pierced the hearts of many of her listeners and moved some to tears, Mary Fisher, 44, daughter of prominent GOP fund-raiser Max Fisher and a mother of two who contracted AIDS from her former husband, made an impassioned appeal for more federal aid to combat the plague. “Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying; 1 million more infected. Worldwide, 40 million, or 60 million, or 100 million infections will be counted in the coming few years. But despite science and research, White House meetings and congressional hearings; despite good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans and hopeful promises--despite it all, it’s the epidemic which is winning tonight,” she said.

* Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster who made a short-lived run for the GOP presidential nomination in 1988, kept up the vitriolic attacks on the Democrats, describing them as left-wingers dedicated to destroying family values. Likening them to the former Communist rulers of Eastern Europe, Robertson told the convention: “The people of Eastern Europe got rid of their left-wingers. It is time we in American got rid of our left wingers.”

* Bush defended lieutenants who have made Hillary Clinton the targets of their attacks. He said the criticism was legitimate because the Clintons had suggested “you get 2 for 1.” Barbara Bush said last week that she regarded the criticism of Mrs. Clinton as inappropriate. But the President said Wednesday night that, while he normally did not like “going after the wife” of an opponent, Mrs. Clinton was “injecting herself into the issue business.”

* The White House sought to damp down a potentially distracting flap set off Tuesday when Bush said he would shake up his Cabinet if reelected. Faced with a frenzy of speculation over who would be dumped, presidential Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater hastily declared that Bush was “referring only to the routine departure of Cabinet members that historically occurs in a second term.” And the President personally assured Housing Secretary Jack Kemp--the darling of many delegates here--that the remarks were not aimed at him in particular.

* Marilyn Quayle, speaking to the convention, suggested Democrats were part of the counterculture that produced “questionable” change. “Not everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft,” she said.

When her husband was selected as Bush’s running mate four years ago, one of the controversies that erupted around him concerned his decision to join the Indiana National Guard during the Vietnam War, a step that exempted him from the draft.

Martin, in her speech nominating Bush, continued the Republicans’ assault on Clinton, who many GOP speakers have derided for lacking a background in foreign policy. Martin declared that “in a changing and sometimes dangerous world, we cannot risk the inexperienced and inept.”

And, in a thinly veiled reference to Clinton’s efforts to evade the draft during the Vietnam conflict, she said that inside Bush, a World War II combat veteran, “is the heart of an 18-year-old fighter pilot who risked his life for his country, who did not run from his responsibilities then and does not now.”

She described Bush as “a decent man, an honest man, a modest man, a man who saw his mission four years ago as peace--and who has delivered this dividend every day since.”

The Bush Family

Mrs. Bush’s speech was laced with humor, good feelings and a reaching out to many kinds of families struggling with a diversity of problems. It was in stark contrast to the tone of many convention speeches. While she avoided any attack on Democrats, she congratulated Mrs. Quayle for “a great speech.” She added: “Thank you, darling.”

“You know,” Mrs. Bush said, “once when I heard an interviewer ask George what accomplishment he was most proud of, I wondered what he would answer. . . . Well, it’s the same answer George Bush always gives. That his children still come home.”

Mrs. Bush made no mention of her recent statements embracing a pro-choice position on abortion, a stance that flies in the face of the GOP platform that calls for prohibiting abortion under any circumstances. A White House spokesperson denied a report that she had included a mention in the text, but deleted it at the campaign’s request.

The Bushes’ eldest grandson, 16-year-old George P., son of Jeb Bush of Miami, called the President “the greatest man I’ve ever known” and said that despite the pressures of his job, he always has time for his grandchildren.

George P. said some people wonder what makes the President tick. “The family is what makes my grandfather tick,” he said to loud cheers.

Economic Plans

The decision by Bush and his advisers to shy away from announcing bold new economic plans targeted for quick implementation reflects a White House assessment that his most important task is to regain voters’ faith in his economic leadership, strategists said.

Rather than risk cynical response to a last-minute initiative, Bush intends to stand by his current economic growth proposals and offer “new ideas” about a second-term path to recovery, officials said.

“This is not the time to lay out a whole new action plan for the economy,” a top Bush strategist said. “This is not a State of the Union address. This is not a legislative agenda. It’s an acceptance speech.”

Fitzwater also told reporters that Bush’s speech would not include a call for a new tax cut. The emphatic denials marked a renewed effort to squelch speculation that the President might issue some version of an economic August Surprise.

The spokesman also indicated that Bush would offer no apology for abandoning the no-new-taxes pledge he made at the Republican Convention four years ago. But White House aides cautioned that final decisions remained in Bush’s hands alone.

Senior aides continued to press for a plan that would install outgoing Secretary of State James A. Baker III in the White House during a second Bush term with extraordinary authority over domestic and economic affairs. Speaking with unusual candor--but insisting on anonymity--some said such a plan would offer Bush perhaps his last best chance to demonstrate his commitment to a domestic agenda.

“I don’t think it’s a panacea for the election,” one top Bush strategist said. “But Jim has a great deal of credibility as well as ability, and it would send a very powerful signal that Bush was putting a priority on domestic affairs and economic growth.”

Top Bush advisers stressed that they did not know whether the President and Baker had talked about such a plan. But they expressed hope that the subject would be raised as the two began a series of private meetings here Wednesday afternoon.

Baker, who is attending the convention in his role as outgoing secretary of state, arrived in Houston earlier in the day and headed immediately for the Houstonian Hotel, where both he and the President are staying during the convention. Baker begins his new job as White House chief of staff--with authority over reelection campaign operations--on Monday.

Poll Results

The latest ABC/Washington Post poll is especially bleak news for the Bush campaign. By the middle of the GOP’s 1988 convention, Bush already had pulled even with that year’s Democratic nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, who had left his party’s convention a month before with a 17-point lead. The latest poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday among a national sample and ostensibly would have reflected any boost Bush might have gotten from the first two days of the convention.

Instead, Clinton’s 25-point lead was two points greater than his lead over Bush a week ago, although that is within the margin of sampling error.

While the overall result remained little changed, Clinton increased his already formidable lead among voters who had intended to support independent Ross Perot before he decided against running.

(Perot said in a television interview Wednesday that he might conceivably re-enter the presidential race, but he hedged the possibility with a host of conditions--including a draft from the volunteers who had supported him.)

Last week, Clinton led among Perot supporters, 56% to 35%; this week he leads, 69% to 18%.

Among independents, Clinton increased his lead from 56% to 35% to 60% to 30%. Even among Republicans, Bush’s support dropped, from a lead over Clinton of 78% to 17%, to a lead of 70% to 22%.

Overall, the survey numbers show an unusually stable race since the Democratic Convention last month, with Clinton’s lead varying but little in six different ABC/Washington Post polls since then.

Other polls have shown a slight narrowing of Clinton’s lead since the Democratic convention.

In the view of many analysts, he needs a significant bounce of eight to 10 points from the convention if he is to overtake Clinton and be re-elected.

Pat Robertson

Robertson ascribed the adjective “slick” not only to Clinton but to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Daniel Rostenkowski of Illinois and Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can’t trust Slick Teddy from Massachusetts or Slick Rosty from Chicago or Slick Joey from Delaware--and, ladies and gentlemen, I tell you that the American can’t trust Slick Willie from Arkansas!”

After criticizing Clinton for wanting to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, Robertson said: “When Bill and Hillary Clinton talk about family values, they are not talking about either families or values. They are talking about a radical plan to destroy the traditional family and transfer its functions to the federal government.”

While communism has collapsed and the threat of nuclear terror has faded, Robertson said, an “equally insidious plague has fastened itself upon the families of America. It is the belief that bureaucrats know more about managing people’s affairs than the people themselves. . . .

“The carrier of this plague,” he said, “is the Democrat Party. Lyndon Johnson called it the Great Society. Bill Clinton calls it the New Covenant . . . whatever name you give it, it is still the liberal welfare state--and we want no part of it.”

Cabinet Shuffle

Some conservative Republicans grumbled that the President himself stepped on the desired message of renewed GOP unity at the convention by saying in a television interview that he plans to make major changes in his Cabinet if reelected.

Although Bush named no names, his statement led to media reports that the departing officials would include Kemp, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady and Budget Director Richard G. Darman and suggested that the status of Labor Secretary Martin was questionable.

Kemp is a hero to conservatives, just as they view Brady and Darman as adversaries on economic policy. Pragmatists in the Bush Administration, however, have little use for Kemp but support the Brady-Darman team.

“It was unfortunate,” said Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, a leading conservative voice in the party. Another GOP loyalist was more caustic, asking: “Who was the genius (Bush) who thought this up?”

Marilyn Quayle

Mrs. Quayle, in an apparent reference to Hillary Clinton, said that when baby boomers were growing up, “not everyone believed that the family was so oppressive that women could only thrive apart from it.”

“The majority of my generation lived by the credo our parents taught us: We believed in God; in hard work and personal discipline; in our nation’s essential goodness; and in the opportunity it promised those willing to work for it,” said Mrs. Quayle, a Christian fundamentalist.

She pointed out that she, like Hillary, is a lawyer, but that she chose to leave her profession and stay at home as a full-time mother with her three children. Liberals, she said, are “disappointed because most women do not wish to be liberated from their essential natures as women. Most of us love being mothers or wives, which gives our lives a richness that few men or women get from professional accomplishments alone.”

And, in an apparent reference to allegations that Bill Clinton had a sexual affair, she said most of her generation “learned that commitment, marriage and fidelity are not just arbitrary arrangements.”

Times staff writers William J. Eaton and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.