Dole, Kemp Unite in Kansas, Vow to Win White House

Under a vast prairie sky, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp officially buried the hatchet Saturday as they embraced one another at a colorful rally in Dole’s hometown and vowed to work together to drive President Clinton from the White House.

An enthusiastic crowd of several thousand central Kansans gave Dole and his surprise choice as running mate a rousing heartland welcome. The exuberant rally amounted to a welcome home for Kemp, a leader among conservatives during the 1980s who feared the party was turning away from his brand of “compassionate conservatism” in the 1990s.

Kemp vowed to take the GOP campaign to “every community and every neighborhood” across America, “from the boroughs of New York to the barrios of California.”

The Dole-Kemp ticket will promote an inclusive agenda, he said. “We may not get every vote,” he added, “but we are going to make it unambiguously clear, in word and in our actions, that we want to, and intend to, represent the whole American family; that no one will be left behind, and no one will be turned away.”

Back in San Diego, however, the message was quite the opposite as Gov. Pete Wilson and Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts discovered that the prime-time speaking slots they had anticipated at the party national convention had been yanked away. The move came after the two last week had threatened to stage a convention floor fight over placing abortion-rights language in the party platform.

The decision by party Chairman Haley Barbour once again raised the issue of whether abortion-rights supporters, who lost every battle seeking to temper the platform’s strong antiabortion stance, are being turned away by the party. Excluding Wilson from the speakers’ list was particularly unusual, as it is customary for the governor of the convention’s host state to speak.

Wilson declined to speculate on whether he was being snubbed for threatening the fight on abortion rights. But privately, Wilson supporters called it retribution.

“I have the hide of an elephant or I would not be in this business,” Wilson said. “It seems a little strange, but frankly it isn’t going to stand in my way of enjoying a convention in my hometown.”

New York Gov. George Pataki joined Weld and Wilson as the third abortion-rights governor to give up or be denied a speaking spot at the convention, which opens Monday and will officially nominate Dole on Wednesday.

Pataki said he had been invited by the Dole campaign to address the convention but declined. Sources said Pataki didn’t like the topic Dole’s campaign staff had assigned him--immigration. Pataki said earlier Saturday that he disagreed with a GOP platform plank calling for the American-born children of illegal immigrants to be denied automatic U.S. citizenship.

Barbour and other convention officials produced conflicting explanations of what caused Wilson and Weld to lose their speaking slots.

First, Barbour insisted Wilson had never been promised a slot.

When Wilson aides produced a letter to the governor from Barbour dated July 29 asking “you to join us in our . . . Monday session, which is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. on Aug. 12,” Barbour dismissed the communication as a “form letter . . . that does not invite him to make a speech.”

“It is my impression that this has been very clear from the very beginning,” Barbour said.

Barbour contended Wilson was offered an appearance on Monday morning, officially opening the convention as the host governor and that like the other losing Republican presidential candidates, Wilson was also asked to submit a brief video presentation.

But the chairman’s statement contradicted an explanation offered by convention officials Friday. Then, communications director Mark Sanders said Wilson was offered an evening speaking slot but had turned it down.

As for Weld, Barbour said the Massachusetts governor declined to speak because he refused to talk about a balanced budget and tax cuts, as convention leaders had asked. “He said he wanted to speak on social issues,” Barbour said.

Weld was free to talk about issues such as abortion so long as he did so in the context of a balanced budget and tax cuts, Barbour said.

Abortion Issue Redux

In Boston, Weld told reporters he had been asked to give short remarks introducing a videotape featuring longshot presidential candidate Morry Taylor.

The reappearance of an abortion dispute at the convention threatened to disrupt the calm that has been expected ever since the agreement on the platform was announced Wednesday.

“If it’s true, it would be terrible,” said Susan Cullman, head of Republicans for Choice, who, with Wilson, negotiated the agreement that allows the views of abortion-rights supporters to be placed in an appendix at the end of the platform.

But the threat of disunity appeared far away from the celebration that the Dole campaign staged in Russell.

The formal announcement of Kemp’s selection culminated a remarkable resurrection for a man who not only had sparred with Dole for more than a decade, but who had also felt increasingly exiled from his party over the past four years. As recently as this winter, Kemp felt his voice had become so marginal inside the party that he described these as his “wilderness years.”

Indeed, so distant did Kemp feel from the party convention that when his wife, Joanne, called his brother Tom in Laguna Beach a week ago, she told him: ‘We’re probably going to stay with you if it’s all right. Jack doesn’t think there’s really a place for him at the convention,’ ” Tom Kemp said Saturday afternoon.

Kemp the Contrarian

Kemp’s focus on reaching out to minority voters placed him in steadily sharper conflict with conservative initiatives on crime, welfare, affirmative action, welfare and immigration. And he found relatively little support for his agenda of encouraging inner-city development through tax breaks and other inducements; those ideas were pointedly omitted from the “contract with America” that congressional Republicans drafted in 1994.

“I’ll admit very candidly that the things that I championed have been sidelined temporarily for a much more orthodox conservative agenda,” Kemp said in an interview last summer.

Kemp retained good personal relations with conservative congressional leaders such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi--both of whom had looked up to him as an inspiration during their early years in Congress. But throughout 1995 and 1996 he publicly worried that the congressional Republican agenda might strike Americans as too hard-edged.

“My concern, as a Republican, is that if we lurch the country too far . . . I see the possibility that the American people would say, ‘Well, I don’t particularly like the president . . . but I’m glad he’s there to keep us from a lurch [to the right],’ ” he said in the interview last year.

Saturday, however, Kemp stressed areas of agreement, and his spirited remarks seemed to lift Dole, who at one point turned to his wife, Elizabeth, and nodded approvingly and with a broad smile.

After the speeches, held in front of the Russell County Courthouse under threatening skies, Dole and Kemp enthusiastically worked a rope line while a pep band played, fireworks were detonated and thousands of red, white and blue, helium-filled balloons were released.

Kemp, a former NFL quarterback, quickly doffed his jacket and playfully tossed a football back and forth with people in the crowd.

Dole and Kemp are scheduled to arrive in San Diego this morning. “This is Day One of a great team effort,” Dole said.

Dole called Kemp at 10:06 p.m. Friday from Russell to offer him the No. 2 spot on the ticket and Kemp immediately accepted--so eagerly and so enthusiastically that others in the room with Dole could hear Kemp’s voice, according to Dole aides. Their conversation lasted 15 minutes.

Given Kemp’s maverick nature as well as their rocky personal relationship over the years, borne of serious policy differences over key issues, Dole issued a pointed warning to Kemp about speaking out of line.

Tax Rate Cut

At Saturday afternoon’s rally, Dole strongly promoted his proposed 15%, across-the-board cut in tax rates, but devoted most of his remarks to praising his newfound soul mate, describing Kemp as “someone who believes in the values I believe in, and someone who’s ready to fight the battles I will fight, someone who has courage and integrity and character.”

Recalling Kemp’s service not only in the NFL but also as a congressman and Cabinet secretary, Dole said Kemp has “a career to be proud of and a career worthy of the next vice president of the United States.”

And noting that Kemp has four children and 11 grandchildren, Dole added: “America is going to love the Kemp family.”

For his part, the always enthusiastic Kemp declared that “I believe this is the most exciting time in the most eventful century in human history.

“There’s no more challenging or exhilarating time in history to help shape America’s leadership and America’s future.”

Kemp sounded most exuberant when he praised Dole for embracing massive tax cuts as a way to stimulate economic growth--an approach that Kemp has long championed but which Dole had scorned for much of his 35 years in Congress.

‘Banner of Growth’

“Bob Dole has formally accepted that challenge. He has unfurled our banner of growth and opportunity and hope and cultural renewal. He has proposed to fundamentally reorganize and finally change and reform the way the government does business, to expand equality of opportunity for all our people,” Kemp said.

And a “fairer, flatter, simpler tax code,” he added, will bring “unimagined prosperity into our children’s future.”

Kemp described Dole’s agenda as “hopeful” and “inclusive.”

In San Diego, delegates began gathering from throughout the country Saturday at the seaside convention center.

Hundreds of protesters are expected to attend as well. On Saturday, antiabortion protesters began their demonstrations.

Twenty-six antiabortion protesters from Operation Rescue were arrested Saturday for blocking an abortion clinic east of San Diego in the opening round of what activists said would be a week of demonstrations during the GOP convention.

Several hundred demonstrators organized a 50-car convoy that arrived at the clinic about 8:30 a.m. They sang hymns and read aloud from their Bibles. During the two-hour blockade, several women arriving at the clinic were confronted by protesters who tried to persuade them not to have abortions.

In an agreement between police and Operation Rescue leaders, the protesters left voluntarily after being cited and photographed. In turn, they were not taken to jail.

Chen reported from Russell and Lesher from San Diego. Times staff writers Tony Perry and Michael Granberry in San Diego contributed to this story.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

San Diego Squeeze

Site’s low ceiling draws criticism, but convention organizers say hall will have an ‘intimate’ and appealing look

Turmoil among delegates is expected at a political convention, but the hall itself has become a cause celebre for this year’s GOP gathering. The San Diego Convention Center is considerably smaller than venues normally used for such events -- its seating capacity, for instance, is only 20,000. And its 27 1/2-foot ceiling pales in comparison to the cavernous nature of Houston’s Astrodome or New York’s Madison Square Garden, sites of the 1992 conventions. Several television network executives, worried about sight lines for their cameras, have roundly criticized the setting. But convention organizers say the waterfront center will offer a more “intimate” look for television audiences. “It’s like a bride who looks at the hall and says it will never do,” said Bill Evans, president of the convention hall’s board of the directors. “But then she sees it all decorated and with all the guests ad she loves it.”

FACTS AND NUMBERS

Opened: Nov. 24, 1989

Cost: $165 million

*

LIGHTS, SOUND, CABLE

Show lights: 1,200 (2 megawatts of lighting)

Show technicians: 200

Speakers: 86

Microphone inputs: 156

Press feeds: 500+

Power requirements: 400,000 watts

Generators: 20

In-hall cameras: 26

Trailers needed to carry equipment: 15 45-foot trailers

*

COMMUNICATIONS

Communications cable: 1 million feet

Time to lay cable: 7,000 man-hours

Days to install: 35

Days to remove: 8

Peak telephone use: 100,000 calls per hour

Long distance usage: 15 million minutes

*

ROLL CALL

Delegates: 1,990 and 1,990 alternates

Media: 15,000

Volunteers: 10,000

Economic impact: $125 million for the local economy

Balloons: 50,000

Man-hours to inflate: 500

Key Speakers and Events

-- Monday (morning session starts at 10 a.m.; evening session 4 to 8 p.m.) -- Morning session features presentation of platform, possible fight over abortion plank.

-- Speakers to include retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, former Presidents Bush and Ford, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, California Gov. Pete Wilson, AIDS activist Mary Fisher, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

*

Tuesday (4 to 8 p.m.)

-- Speakers and videos are to criticize President Clinton’s record, tout GOP initiatives.

-- Rep. Susan Molinari of New York to deliver keynote address.

-- Others speakers to include House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Kay Baley Hutchison of Texas, Rep. J. C. Watts of Oklahoma.

*

Wednesday (4 to 8 p.m.)

-- Bob Dole’s agenda ad “heartland values” are to be spotlighted.

-- Dole will be nominated for president; roll call of states conducted.

-- Speakers to include Elizabeth Hanford Dole, the presumed nominee’s wife, former United Nations Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick; Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld.

*

Thursday (4 to 8 p.m.)

-- Vice presidential nominee will be selected and give acceptance speech.

-- Dole gives his acceptance speech.

SITE IS LOW AND LONG

Long, flat San Diego Site superimposed against Houston’s mushroom-shaped Astrodome.

Source: Republican National Committee