‘92 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION : Conventionn at a Glance

President Bush, addressing the economic problems that threaten to deny him a second term, accepted the Republican nomination Thursday night with a vow that, if reelected, he will seek an across-the-board tax cut from Congress next January. He said the lower taxes would have to be offset by spending reductions. And, in an effort to put a long-running controversy behind him, he apologized for breaking his no-new-taxes pledge.

Getting Personal

Republicans’ efforts to attack Bill Clinton through his personal life accelerated at the convention. Speakers repeatedly have urged voters to compare the private behavior of Bush and Clinton--arguing, in effect, that Bush would be a better President because he is a better man. Bush himself got into the act in his acceptance speech, telling voters they have a “sharp choice” between the character of the men who would lead them.

Defender of the Faith

Dan Quayle struck a similar theme, portraying himself as a man who stands for “faith, family and freedom” against the mockery of his opponents. The vice president, alluding to the flap he stirred when he castigated television’s Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock, said his critics “don’t like our values. They look down on our beliefs.”

A 5-State Strategy

Looking for an alternative to winning California and the South, GOP planners are zeroing in on five major industrial states. Bush will charge that a President Clinton would make the ailing economy even worse. The target states are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, with a combined total of 99 electoral votes; 270 are needed to win the White House. By contrast, California alone has 54--a full 20% of the winning total.

Got’cha!

One-liners are zinging around the convention hall--from Patrick J. Buchanan mocking the Democrats’ convention as a “giant masquerade ball” to Marilyn Quayle’s not-so-subtle reminder that “not everyone joined the counterculture. Not everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft.” Politicians are aiming their sound bites at television and, of course, the voters.