Republicans Nail Down Details of Convention

Unified and flush with confidence, Republicans put the final touches Saturday on a convention program designed to ensure the harmonious nomination of George W. Bush and show the nation a friendlier political face.

The Texas governor spent the day barnstorming across Kentucky, buoyed by a surge in polls but warning against overconfidence. “I’ve seen defeat firsthand,” he told reporters, referring to his father’s loss eight years ago to President Clinton. “I’ve seen poll numbers crumble.”

Democrats, who hold their own convention in two weeks in Los Angeles, did their best to steal some of the limelight.

As party members met in Cleveland to draft their platform, Vice President Al Gore announced plans to reveal his running mate on Aug. 8--a set date that’s intended to avoid the days of speculative circus that surrounded Bush’s selection last week of former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. And once the GOP convention gets underway Monday, the Democrats plan to step up their advertising with a $3.5-million campaign in 17 competitive states.

In Philadelphia, host of its first national convention in 52 years, work crews were pounding away inside the cavernous First Union Center, building the podium that will serve as sound stage for the four-day Republican production.

Across town, the GOP platform committee finished work on the party’s statement of principles after a last-minute intervention by the Bush campaign to restore the candidate’s preferred plank on education, which prescribes a more active federal role. It was just one measure of Bush’s determination to try to stamp out even the mildest show of internal dissent at his nominating pageant.

In the streets, there were scattered demonstrations. The airports and railway stations were bustling, and an air of anticipation hung in the muggy sky as waves of visitors began pouring into this stately old city, home of the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the fictional Rocky Balboa.

Ralph Nader crashed the party in person. Hundreds of supporters swarmed downtown’s JFK Plaza in a sea of green to greet the Green Party’s presidential candidate, who made a brief appearance at a rally calling for a universal health-care system and the “breakup” of the two-party duopoly.

Also pulling into the convention city in far grander fashion was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Bush’s nemesis during a brief but bitter primary season.

Riding his famous Straight Talk Express bus from Washington, McCain even managed to squeeze in one of his patented town hall meetings en route, campaigning for a U.S. House candidate outside Philadelphia. McCain, accompanied by a horde of nearly 70 reporters and photographers, denied trying to horn in on Bush’s celebration.

“I hope that it’s viewed as using every opportunity to get more visibility for George Bush’s candidacy,” the senator said of his busy schedule.

With a full complement of parties beckoning--and this normally Democratic city turned inside out to please--there was little to dispel the happy mood that suffused the Republican Party and its loyalists.

“This is a very settled group; they’re very pleased,” said Tom Rath, a GOP stalwart from New Hampshire who is attending his fifth Republican convention--and the least fractious gathering he has seen since President Reagan was renominated in 1984. “These people are convinced they’re going to nominate the next president.”

The latest batch of polls offered good reasons for optimism. A Washington Post-ABC News survey completed Saturday showed Bush leading by 11 percentage points, the same as a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll; a CNN-Time survey put Bush’s lead at 16 points. “The good news is I’m up in the polls. The bad news is the election’s not tomorrow,” he quipped as he prepared to fly from Joplin, Mo., to his day’s first stop in Owensboro, Ky.

Many polls, however, show voters have only a vague impression of Bush and, come November, the election is expected to be close. Thus the GOP convention, with its sustained and largely flattering exposure, is an important opportunity for Bush to dispel any doubts about his background and capability to be president.

Still, the poll numbers offered a stark contrast to the political picture heading into the last three Republican conventions. In those races--including the one that Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, ultimately won in 1988--the GOP standard-bearer arrived at his convention trailing by margins ranging from 17 to 22 points.

Much of Gov. Bush’s success has stemmed from perceptions he is a “different kind of Republican,” to use his words, who believes in a more centrist and less confrontational approach to government. It is an image his campaign has worked hard to preserve--even if it meant getting tough these last few days with other Republicans.

After overriding strong support to overhaul the primary system--an effort by the Bush camp to avert any chance of a messy fight among states at the convention--the governor weighed in Saturday to impose his will on the party’s platform-writing committee.

The document largely reflects Bush’s political move toward the middle, scrapping the pugnacious tone and much of the anti-government rhetoric of four years ago. But a hard-line plank opposing abortion remains, and social conservatives further asserted themselves Friday and Saturday by adding language opposing same-sex marriage and opposing “special rights” for gays and lesbians. Conservatives also sought language advocating a more limited federal role in education than their presumptive nominee prefers, but backed off once the Bush campaign weighed in.

In two key votes Saturday, the committee defeated a motion to close the U.S. Education Department--the platform’s stance in 1996--and passed a motion to reinstate Bush’s education principles as part of this year’s document. “I told them to push for what I stand for,” Bush told reporters. “If the plank says we’re going to abolish the Department of Education, I don’t support that. [I want] to make the department work for us.”

The platform is set to be ratified as one of the first orders of business when the convention opens Monday.

While the final language was being hammered out, the convention hall itself was still under construction. Inside the First Union Center--home of pro basketball’s 76ers and hockey’s Flyers--a giant net full of red balloons was pulled into place over the blue metal chairs reserved for the Delaware and Oklahoma delegations.

Wood was being nailed to the podium steps and a band competed with the racket of hammers as it practiced “Love Train” and the theme from “Star Wars” (which is tentatively set to be played as a lead-in to McCain’s speech Tuesday night).

Elsewhere in the city, police had an easy day containing the relatively small number of demonstrators who took to the streets--a dress rehearsal of sorts for the more confrontational protests expected later this week.

About 2,000 demonstrators gathered at a small park across the street from police headquarters, then made their way through downtown, chanting “Pills, not profits!” as they demonstrated for affordable prescription drugs and universal health care. In North Philadelphia, about 100 activists rallied against police brutality.

Looking on were scores of police officers, some dressed in SWAT gear and others in white polo shirts. At one point, Police Commissioner John Timoney--who serves as the Philadelphia equivalent of Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks--made his way through the crowd on a bike.

He stopped to shake hands with protesters, telling them the police want to “accommodate” the activists. “These are good people. We want to bend over backward for them, if we can.”

Gore, meantime, was on a family vacation but not completely cut off from presidential politics. Along with the campaign’s announcement of his timetable for unveiling his vice presidential selection, Gore fielded a question about where the process stands. He told reporters he has yet to settle on a running mate.

“We’re just having a good time; we’re just relaxing,” he insisted as he walked barefoot along the beach on Figure Eight Island, N.C., with his wife, Tipper, daughter Sarah and brother-in-law Frank Hunger.

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Times staff writers Dana Calvo, Edwin Chen, Tina Daunt, Faye Fiore, Megan Garvey, Matea Gold, Bonnie Harris, Maria L. La Ganga, Jeff Leeds, T. Christian Miller, Massie Ritsch and Nicholas Riccardi contributing to this story.

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