Cheers for Powell, Tears for Reagan Launch GOP Quest

Republicans opened their national convention Monday with a scripted message of unity, tax cuts and economic growth on their lips and their hopes on Bob Dole’s underdog presidential race. But they gave their hearts to a stirring retired Army general, Colin L. Powell, and cheered his plea that the nation “work together for our common goal: restoring the American dream.”

Time after time, Powell, a recently commissioned Republican--and the first African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--brought the 1,990 delegates, alternates and guests to their feet. His message was one of civility in public debate, shrunken government, help for the downtrodden and a welcome for all Americans in the Republican Party.

While Powell rallied them, it was a touching salute to Ronald Reagan, their only living symbol of unvarnished national electoral success, that brought them to tears. Faces furrowed in sorrow when his wife, Nancy, lost her composure at the memory of his final appearance at the Republican convention four years ago--before the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease set in. Even the illness failed to diminish his optimism, she said, declaring that “he still sees the shining city on the hill.”

The conventioneers also heard in person from the two other most-recent Republican presidents, Gerald R. Ford and George Bush, who were turned out of office by voters. Never mentioning Bill Clinton, to whom he lost the presidency, but his target nevertheless clear, Bush said: “It breaks my heart when the White House is demeaned, the presidency itself diminished.”

In words and symbols, the Republicans used the convention’s carefully controlled opening night to present an image of a party unified after contentious battles over its platform and its presidential nomination, reaching out to those once thought to be unwelcome in its ranks or unhappy with its principles: minorities, the less fortunate and women.

“It was a great night,” Dole said afterward. “We’re off to a great start.”

Earlier in the day, Dole’s final competitor for the party’s presidential nomination, Patrick J. Buchanan, delivered a grudging show of unity, but he waited until the last moment.

Just as the convention’s morning session began, he formally abandoned his own quest for the presidency. Buchanan’s campaign, after a strong start fueled by opposition to abortion, immigration and affirmative action, faded into also-ran status by mid-March.

In a written statement lukewarm at best, Buchanan endorsed Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp, in their fight against the Democratic administration, saying: “The one, the only realistic chance we have in 1996 to implement the agenda for which we campaigned for 18 months is to keep Congress Republican and replace Clinton-Gore with a Republican administration. Therefore, I endorse the Republican ticket of Dole-Kemp and will work for a Republican victory in November.”

Typically laconic, Dole smiled upon learning of Buchanan’s announcement and said, “We’re happy to have that.”

Later, Buchanan visited the convention hall. He and Dole planned to meet privately after the evening session.

Variety Show

On the first of its four days at the San Diego convention center overlooking San Diego Bay, the quadrennial gathering of Republicans had the look not so much of an august political experience of citizens exercising the rights of democracy--a look that, to be sure, has been fast fading in recent decades--as that of an old-fashioned variety show.

Seeking--and achieving--a new look intended to hold the interest of television audiences, convention organizers spliced entertainment into the steady stream of speeches. They bathed their lectern in changing lights of pale, airy blues and faded pinks and purples. Speakers were hurried onto the podium--some given only 90 seconds for their monologues--in a pace that mimicked that of televised entertainment and news shows.

And to the podium trooped a variety of speakers far more diverse than the delegates themselves, 88% of whom are white.

Two members of the Ute tribe, Orian Box and his daughter, Lindsay, dressed in ceremonial garb, led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Four years after she addressed the contentious GOP convention in Houston, Mary Fisher, spoke of her battle against AIDS, told her audience that death from the disease comes as a result of “an infection, not immorality,” and brought to the podium a 12-year-old black girl, Hydeia Broadbent, who has had AIDS since she was born.

In their opening session, the delegates approved by acclamation their party’s platform--a document that is typically dropped into filing cabinets and ignored until the next presidential election, regardless of the controversy it my initially engender.

The platform adheres to many of the ideas Buchanan promoted. It voices the party’s strong support of a constitutional ban on abortion, endorses California’s controversial Proposition 209 calling for an end to ethnic and gender-based affirmative action programs in government and promotes denying automatic American citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, the platform committee chairman, discounted GOP critics when he introduced the document for ratification.

This was the moment at which California Gov. Pete Wilson and other Republican supporters of abortion rights had threatened to launch their longshot floor fight to include platform language that would support a woman’s right to abort a pregnancy. Such a fight was averted when Dole agreed to attach the language as an appendix, while maintaining strong opposition to abortion in the platform itself.

Hyde proclaimed: “They said we would dissolve in discord. But here we are, strong in unity. . . . We come together when our country needs us. And my brothers and sisters, does our country need us now.”

Reaganite Appeal

From its videotaped glimpse of the 85-year-old Reagan to a message of economic and social renewal, the opening night was designed to appeal to the voters who, 16 years ago, sent Reagan to the White House and overwhelmingly returned him there four years later.

But in so doing, it also drew attention to the contrast between the Reagan era and the current political landscape in the final years of the century, leaving open the question: Can the Republicans find a message in 1996 that will have the allure of its anti-communist, tax-cut script of 1980?

And can they do so without Reagan’s allure?

Just as Democrats, who adhered to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal themes for 40 years after his final election in 1944 and were unable to score consecutive presidential wins, the Republicans are struggling to revive the coalition of blue-collar Democrats, social conservatives of both parties and tax-cutting economic supply-siders that gave them 12 years in the White House until Clinton defeated Bush four years ago.

California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, asked to introduce the tax-cutting economic plan that Dole recently made the centerpiece of his campaign, said the program was “faithful to the agenda Ronald Reagan inspired.”

As the convention moved methodically, if unemotionally, through the early business of approving the platform and gave passing attention to a quick-flowing podium-parade of governors and lesser-known politicians at the midday session, Dole spent the day mostly out of the spotlight.

He learned of Buchanan’s endorsement during a late-morning speech--his only public appearance--to several hundred employees at Solar Turbines, a San Diego manufacturer of industrial gas turbines. When an aide slipped him a note, he smiled.

Later, Dole told reporters: “We’d like to leave here united and it appears that we will.”

With a nod to the roots of the Buchanan campaign and the desire to lure voters worried about their economic future--Dole said, “I think he did have a message when it came to job security and some of the trade areas . . . we’re happy to have him on board.”

The former Kansas senator, clearly energized and casually attired in khakis and a checked, mustard-colored jacket, tailored his appeal to independents, Democrats and potential supporters of the Reform Party founded by Ross Perot. “Take a look at us,” he urged, offering up his new campaign slogan: “A better man for a better America.”

On the podium, meanwhile, the speakers focused on drawing contrasts between Democrats in the White House and the Republicans. The pace was lively. Sixty-five events were listed for the evening session alone.

The speakers peppered their talks with tales from constituents intended to highlight what Dole had accomplished as Senate majority leader but also to reinforce the party’s complaints that government has grown too large and intrusive.

Even the convention center’s interior design was drawn up to humanize the gathering: The speaker’s low-slung podium is considerably less imposing than the multistory structures of past national conventions. But the convention is an awkward fit in such a hall, its ceiling less than 30 feet high, the network anchors’ sky boxes sitting just off the floor, and the podium midway down the long side of the rectangular floor, with delegates and their guests spread far to either side.

A more significantly awkward fit, however, may be the economic program on which Dole and Kemp are running: a 15% cut in Americans’ tax rates even as the GOP candidates insist on additional cuts in federal spending to eliminate the budget deficit.

No less loyal a Republican than Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York, who spearheaded Dole’s big primary win in that state, raised questions about the proposal in a radio interview Monday.

The only solution, he said, may be to take the politically horrifying step of cutting Social Security recipients’ cost-of-living increases and reducing Medicare payments to the elderly. But that, said D’Amato, was not an idea that should pass Dole’s lips now.

“I would never say it if I were him until after the election. No way. I mean, I’m not running this year, so I can say it and tell the truth,” he said on the Don Imus radio show.

The presence of Republican activists and many more journalists drew demonstrators supporting, and opposing, a multitude of causes to a parking lot turned protest zone across trolley tracks from the convention center. The area, surrounded by a specially installed chain-link fence bears stark red signs warning: “All persons entering are subject to search for firearms or explosives.”

Times staff writers Dave Lesher, Gebe Martinez, Jeffrey L. Rabin, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Sara Fritz, Janet Hook, Eleanor Randolph, Dan Morain, James Rainey, Peter Warren and researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this story.

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