GOP Convention’s List of Speakers Rankles the Buchanan Camp

Republicans released a lengthy list of speakers for next month’s national convention on Monday amid fresh complaints from Patrick J. Buchanan’s camp that conservatives are being shoved aside as Bob Dole seeks to project a softer, moderate GOP image.

Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour said the convention would be a “festival of Republican ideas” with an emphasis on how a Dole administration would improve the lives of “real people.”

Barbour released a list of 44 speakers that included 10 Republican governors, among them California Gov. Pete Wilson, seven senators and 10 House members, as well as Dole’s wife, Elizabeth, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell and former Presidents Ford and Bush.

GOP sources said New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison would deliver prime-time speeches on Tuesday, the night the keynote address is given by New York Rep. Susan Molinari. All three women support abortion rights. Powell, another abortion-rights supporter, is scheduled to speak on Monday.

It is these decisions that have rankled Buchanan and his top advisors, who believe Dole, in an effort to appeal to women voters, is deliberately giving short shrift not only to Buchanan personally but to the ideas he champions.