Bush, Gore Teams Are Getting Convention Playbooks Ready

Their problems are polar opposites: The American public knows Al Gore’s brain, but not his soul, recognizes George W. Bush for his pedigree, but not his policies.

Their remedies are the same: a four-day midsummer photo opportunity--better known as the national nominating convention--in which each man will be anointed his party’s official standard-bearer and try to polish his public persona at the same time.

Fresh from planning meetings in Kennebunkport, Maine, the Bush campaign promises a high-toned Philadelphia convention full of policy, not polemics, with each day structured around a separate issue and punctuated by prime-time speeches appealing to independent voters and minorities.

Retired Army Gen. Colin L. Powell is tentatively scheduled to speak on Day One; Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Bush’s rival during the bitter primary season, will likely talk about rebuilding America’s military on Day Two. The campaign has scuttled the tradition of devoting a full day to lambasting the competition.

“Gov. Bush is a different kind of Republican. We intend this to be a different kind of convention,” Karen Hughes, the Texan’s communications director, said Thursday. “We intend to use the convention to explain to America why his policies are truly compassionate and conservative.”

No Formal Strategy Sessions Yet for Gore

The Gore campaign has yet to hold a formal strategy session for his party’s Los Angeles convention, although several are scheduled over the next few weeks. But advisors to the vice president say that his event will be “primarily positive” as well, fleshing out the candidate’s story and bringing him out from the shadow of President Clinton.

“A lot is going to be about who Al Gore is, what he’s done and what he wants to do,” said strategist Carter Eskew.

With television coverage and viewership on a decades-long decline and the presidential nominations decided months before the August events, political conventions have been reduced to little more than extended campaign ads, all scripted joy and patriotic colors.

Political scientist Dennis Simon, who specializes in elections and the American presidency at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, calls them “political prime-time talent shows. And that’s not terribly newsworthy.”

He offers Christopher Reeve and Elizabeth Hanford Dole as evidence. Reeve, the movie star paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, boosted the TV audience when he spoke at the 1996 Democratic convention. Dole won raves when she did a creditable Phil Donahue impression at the Republican fete the same year, chatting her way through a rapt audience, microphone in hand.

How to Incorporate Political Forebears

What each candidate hopes to accomplish with his costly event is the so-called “post-convention bump” in the polls gained by a week in the unbroken spotlight. The longer that bump lasts, the better chance the candidate has to power to victory in November.

This year, both campaigns face delicate balancing acts when it comes to incorporating their famous political forebears into the festivities, a traditional component of most conventions.

Gore is in the middle of what his campaign calls a “progress and prosperity tour” designed to remind America that life is good, so there is no need to put a new political party in the White House.

But what to do about Clinton when the Democrats meet Aug. 14-17? The president has led the country during its economic rebound. But he repelled many voters during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, and his charisma makes the stiff vice president look even more wooden by comparison.

One confidant suggests that Gore should trot out every Democratic luminary from primary election rival Bill Bradley to basketball great Michael Jordan “and then at the end, let Clinton come out on stage.” The president has cleared his schedule for the week, just in case.

Those involved in the planning, however, suggest Clinton will have something closer to a cameo role.

One key insider acknowledged that Clinton will definitely be honored at the convention, “and that’s good for Gore” because part of the message the event will relate “is that the last 7 1/2 years have been good.”

But while the convention “will give Clinton his due,” the strategist went on, “it’s also important that the country gets to know Al Gore without the Clinton-Gore moniker.”

Another senior strategist suggested that the convention will be run along the lines of the 1988 GOP gathering, which focused on President Reagan on opening night only. After that, Reagan left town and the nation’s attention swung to his understudy, Vice President George Bush.

“The model is ‘the Gipper’ in ‘88,” said Paul Begala, a former Clinton advisor, using Reagan’s old nickname. “I think President Clinton knows that. You show up, give the speech of your life, then get on a plane, take Buddy to Camp David and let your friend stand in the spotlight.”

Bush has his own family considerations. The famous Bush flock will be on hand at the July 31-Aug. 3 Republican convention, but the campaign has not ironed out just how each member will take part. His photogenic nephew, George P. Bush, 24, has been named the convention’s youth chairman.

His father will be honored in some fashion befitting his station as both past president and proud parent, but his role in Philadelphia is not without peril.

In fact, Bush goes out of his way on the campaign trail to distance himself from his privileged upbringing. The last time President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara--the living symbols of Bush’s past--made a public pitch for their son was the weekend before the New Hampshire primary. Bush lost, and some analysts said the family strategy backfired by reinforcing the notion the Texas governor has prospered through family ties rather than his own initiative.

Bush and his high-level advisors huddled from Sunday through Wednesday at Walker’s Point, the family compound on the Maine coast, to strategize about the upcoming convention, which they view as a package of events stretched over a 12- to 16-day period.

“We’ll build up to the convention,” Hughes said Thursday, “and come roaring out of the convention to capitalize on the momentum.”

Theme-a-Day Strategy for Bush

While staffers would not elaborate on the details of the theme-a-day plan, there will likely be attention paid to education, one of Bush’s signature issues. Tuesday, the second day of the convention, will likely be devoted to foreign policy. In addition to McCain, Bush’s chief foreign policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, will probably speak in prime time.

Nancy Ives, McCain’s Senate press secretary, said that the Arizonan has accepted an invitation to speak at the convention.

Bush himself was coy Thursday about the planning effort. Yes, he said as he landed in Boston for a fund-raising swing, “we’re making decisions.”

“Obviously word got out that I hope John McCain gives a speech at the convention, a major speech in a prime-time spot,” he said. “I think that’s going to be an important speech for him to give.”

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Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.