‘92 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION : Image-Makers Were at a Loss for Words : Media: GOP officials controlled the pictures but not what party members were saying in public. Lack of single message showed cracks in ranks.

As they sat on the podium in the Astrodome each night this week, the architects of George Bush’s reelection campaign faced a console of 20 or so television sets that let them monitor how their national convention was playing across America.

Tellingly, they turned the sound off.

To the rather annoyed network correspondents who noticed, it was a sign that the party seemed to believe that the pictures were more important than the words.

But as one takes measure of what America saw this week through television and newspaper coverage of the convention, the mute podium monitors may also be a metaphor for a larger problem faced by the Republicans.

Party officials skillfully mastered and controlled the pictures of their convention, even to the point of filling the hall during key moments with cheering volunteers and forbidding those in the arena to carry anything except party-approved placards.

But they were not able to successfully control what their own party members were saying, either in speeches or on camera in interviews.

On NBC, there was Jack Kemp speaking to Tom Brokaw, criticizing Patrick J. Buchanan and the darker messages of the Republican Party. On CBS, there was Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar saying he has a problem with what some of the conservatives speakers had said.

As one senior GOP official remarked dejectedly: “We have some of the music, but none of the words.”

Even in an age of sound bites and backdrops, that lament underscores an enduring truth about politics: Try as they might to control the images, no amount of political skill on the part of party officials can obscure real fissures within the ranks.

The signs were evident off-camera as well. The “bookers” who arrange for people to come on camera for networks to interview say the party could not seem to manage the message as well either.

“Four years ago, we couldn’t get any Republican to go on air unless they checked with the campaign first,” said the chief booker for one network. “This year there is a lot of free-lancing.”

There are some who believe this represents a calculated strategy. Kathleen Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said the Republicans are trying to deal with their differences by deliberately “sending out mixed messages and then inviting audiences to choose the one they most want to hear.”

For example, a conservative might be gratified by the tough GOP platform, while a moderate might be pleased that the party invited an AIDS victim to speak and an abortion-rights advocate to nominate the President.

But even Jamieson suggests that for such a strategy to work, the party must successfully convince moderates that Bill Clinton is an unreliable alternative.

It is the Democrats, in contrast, who seem to be speaking with one voice this year. “Every time we call someone,” the booker said, “they say they would like to talk, but they have to check with Little Rock.”

The initial reviews were mixed as well for George Bush’s speech Thursday. “A little long, a little diffuse and the result of a speech written by committee,” ABC’s Jeff Greenfield said.

“Weak,” New York Times columnist William Safire said on CNN.

“A little short on the kind of fireworks he may need,” Charles Kuralt said on CBS.

“A terrific speech for a candidate seeking a first term,” said conservative commentator George Will.

“I thought it was a very good speech, a political speech,” said ABC’s David Brinkley.

Before Bush spoke, the Republicans conceded that Americans were hearing dissonant voices in the convention speeches. Privately, party officials would only say, for example, that Buchanan’s speech, rather than being an asset for Bush, will not hurt him later with independents and moderate Democrats.

Republican officials also are concerned that the repeated bashing of Hillary Clinton may prove to be “counterproductive.” So many speeches featured criticism of the Democratic nominee’s wife, including those by Buchanan and Marilyn Quayle, that Barbara Bush was asked about it in interviews on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “Today,” and ABC’s “World News Tonight,” among others.

Republican planners had intended that the message would shift from conservative themes to more moderate messages as the week progressed. But Marilyn Quayle’s speech Wednesday night hardly came across as moderate. While it was not featured in prime time, her insinuated attack on Bill Clinton as a draft dodger dominated news accounts late Wednesday and much of Thursday.

That reflects yet another difficulty the Republicans encountered here. If a party seems divided--as the Republicans increasingly do--one technique that officials have used to control the damage is carefully selecting the speakers allowed on the podium during the limited prime-time coverage.

But now, most Americans learn about conventions not by watching them, but in the smaller slivers of sound and image received haphazardly through newscasts. Fewer than 35% of the people watching television during prime time this week have been tuned into the conventions. That is slightly fewer than watched the Democrats in July, and the lowest level ever recorded. On Tuesday, for example, more Americans watched a rerun of ABC’s “Roseanne” than watched all three networks’ coverage of the convention a little later.

The Republicans were pleased with one of the images they created this week: George Bush walking on stage Wednesday to greet his family. It was the perfect visual accompaniment to the rhetorical message that Bush represents family values and, as his nomination speech by Labor Secretary Lynn Martin put it, makes a good President because he is a good man.

But they were no doubt less pleased when Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld was booed within his own party Tuesday for saying he supported abortion rights. Weld told reporters that party officials were not happy when they learned that he planned to include the reference to abortion in his speech. But to his surprise, he said they did not ask him to delete it.

Nor was there any way to control other obvious differences, such as when NBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked Sen. Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a Republican who backs abortion rights, how he reconciled his position with a party platform that endorses a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.

“I’ve been in politics for 25 years,” he said. “Never paid much attention to a platform.”

In several key respects, the Republicans did a better job than the Democrats did a month earlier. “Good Morning America” host Charlie Gibson noted that the Republicans surpassed their rivals at arranging their schedule in a way that kept the networks’ cameras trained on the podium and the speakers they wanted to feature. On the second day of the Democratic Convention, for instance, ABC did not broadcast the podium events live for even one moment.

In Houston, the network coverage consisted largely of the speeches the Republicans wanted featured every night. The one exception was CBS, which tended to stick to the podium less than the others. Interestingly, except for Monday night, when the convention followed CBS’ popular sitcoms, the network’s coverage received lower ratings than that of PBS’s Jim Lehrer and Robin McNeil at the same time.

The President’s convention imagery has been dogged by the fact that he is a man with a record. Accordingly, several news organizations this week devoted enormous amounts of time to examining it.

Most of those reviews were mixed, and some of the criticism came from Republicans.

When ABC’s John McWethy examined one of the President’s presumed strengths, education, even Kansas Sen. Bob Dole gave him only a “B.” And NBC’s Lisa Myer’s review of Bush’s record for the “Today” show focused on his broken campaign promises.

CBS, similarly, interrupted Bush’s weeklong commercial here. Rather than leading its Tuesday broadcast with the rousing addresses by Ronald Reagan or Buchanan, it opened with a tough report on the economy.

“Economists say continuing corporate layoffs and today’s (lower) housing figures are both signs time may be running out for President Bush,” correspondent Ray Brady said. “ . . . It would now take a near miracle to turn the economy around by Election Day.”

Such coverage can make a difference. Republican political consultant Eddie Mahe said he believes stories about outside events such as the economy, when they dovetail with politics, are far more important than strictly political news.