Bush Explains Vision for Security and Opportunity

Staking his claim to a second term, President Bush on Thursday night joined the GOP convention assault on rival John F. Kerry and promised to “build a safer world and a more hopeful America” over the next four years.

In a speech accepting the Republican nomination and wrapping up the four-day gathering, Bush spelled out his vision of an entrepreneurial “ownership society” and expansive U.S. foreign policy leading “the cause of freedom in a new century.”

The president spoke at greatest length about his efforts to prevent another attack like the one a few miles from where he spoke, which killed nearly 2,800 people in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

“We are staying on the offensive -- striking terrorists abroad -- so we do not have to face them here at home,” Bush said. “We will build a safer world and a more hopeful America and nothing will hold us back.”

Speaking to millions of Americans worried about their jobs and their children’s futures -- and addressing perhaps his greatest political vulnerability -- the president also pledged to simplify the federal tax code, expand the availability of healthcare and reform the nation’s pension and worker training programs.

“In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program but a path -- a path to greater opportunity, more freedom and more control over your own life,” Bush said.

“We will transform these systems so that all citizens are equipped, prepared -- and thus truly free -- to make your own choices and pursue your own dreams,” he said, reviving the “compassionate conservative” philosophy that was the template of his 2000 campaign.

Bush’s acceptance speech at Madison Square Garden was seen by fellow Republicans as vital to his reelection hopes, a fact reflected by the 30-plus revisions the address underwent.

In a presidential race that has been essentially deadlocked for six months, the prime-time address gave Bush an opportunity to appear unfiltered before an audience of millions -- the last such chance he may have before November.

Once he finished, Bush wasted no time leaving New York -- a state that is politically out of reach -- for the campaign battleground of Pennsylvania.

Today, the president is scheduled to address three rallies, starting in Moosic, Pa., then heading to Wisconsin and Iowa, before spending the night in Ohio, perhaps the most critical swing state of the election.

Kerry planned to greet him with the first wave of a nationwide blitz of TV advertising, a 30-second spot that notes the loss of 230,000 Ohio jobs under Bush and a tagline declaring, “We know America can do better.”

The Massachusetts senator planned to spend the next two days in Ohio -- historically a must-win for Republicans -- while his running mate, John Edwards, and the men’s wives head out on separate bus tours across the Midwest.

Both sides were eagerly awaiting today’s Labor Department release of August employment numbers, which could go a long way toward framing the economic debate over the next several weeks.

Bush said Thursday night that Kerry would raise taxes as president and scoffed at his opponent’s claim to possess conservative values.

At a New York fundraiser this summer that featured musicians, actors and comedians -- and a display of raunchy humor -- Kerry had said that the performers conveyed “the heart and soul of our country.”

“If you say the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood, I’m afraid you are not the candidate of conservative values,” Bush said Thursday night.

Bush noted Kerry and Edwards had voted to support giving the president the authority to invade Iraq and -- without using the word -- cast his opponent as a serial flip-flopper.

Like others throughout the week, he cited Kerry’s vote last fall against an $87-billion appropriation for reconstruction and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kerry earlier had voted for an alternative $87-billion bill that would have financed some of the spending by increasing the taxes of the wealthiest Americans.

“When asked to explain his vote, the senator said, ‘I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,’ ” Bush said to laughter from the crowd.

“Then he said he was ‘proud’ of that vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a ‘complicated’ matter. There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat.”

Kerry struck back almost immediately, appearing at a midnight rally in Springfield, Ohio.

“We all saw the anger and distortion of the Republican convention,” Kerry said. “For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief. Well here’s my answer: I’m not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq.”

The president was introduced Thursday night by New York Gov. George E. Pataki, who recalled the events of Sept. 11 and singled out three swing states -- Oregon, Iowa and Pennsylvania -- for their assistance after the attacks.

Pataki praised the president’s “supreme guts and rightness,” and thanked the nation for helping New York’s recovery. He chided Kerry for what he called his lack of resolve, and led the delegates in a chorus of praise for Bush.

The president “said he’d do it,” Pataki said, ticking off a list of Bush’s 2000 promises. “And he did,” the crowd hollered back.

Bush entered the hall as the national TV networks were tuning in, arriving to an explosion of applause.

He delivered his 62-minute speech in a kind of theater-in-the-round, a setting designed to place Bush closer to the delegates and give his appearance a fresh feel. He spoke on a circular platform constructed overnight and stamped with the presidential seal.

Stagecraft aside, most of Bush’s proposals were familiar from the 2000 campaign and the uncompleted to-do list he has sent Congress in the last 3 1/2 years. He gave few details.

Bush promised to “lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code” -- a disappointment, perhaps, to some conservatives who advocate a national sales tax or establishment of a single-rate “flat tax.”

He called for a new national testing requirement for 12th-graders and expanding federal scholarships for low-income college students.

He also proposed new initiatives for healthcare at a time when the rising cost is a top economic concern for the middle class and a major focus of Kerry.

Bush pledged “to ensure every poor county in America” has a community or rural health center. He renewed his call for tax credits to foster the expansion of “health savings accounts” and for legislation making it tougher to sue doctors as a way of expanding the availability of healthcare.

He also proposed a new effort to ensure eligible low-income children were enrolled in Medicaid and other programs.

In addition, Bush reiterated proposals to expand the use of so-called flextime for workers and to overhaul Social Security to allow individuals to invest payroll taxes in private savings accounts and to make permanent the tax cuts passed over the last 3 1/2 years.

The prospects for enactment of the various domestic initiatives in a second term would hinge on whether Republicans expanded their majorities in Congress. Many of the proposals have stalled or met resistance in the narrowly divided Congress.

The chances of overhauling Social Security are considered remote unless Bush puts forward more details about how he wants to set up and finance the option to invest payroll taxes in private accounts. Democrats are bitterly opposed to the idea.

The complexity of the tax code is something politicians of both parties criticize, but efforts to simplify the code have languished in Congress because of the array of interest groups who rise to protect tax breaks.

In a nod to his party’s social conservatives, Bush reiterated his opposition to legalized abortion and renewed his call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. “Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges,” Bush said.

Close to half of his speech was devoted to defense issues and the threat of terrorism, which the president tied into his decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.

“I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office -- a decision no president would ask for but must be prepared to make,” Bush said.

“Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman?” -- delegates interrupted with a cry of “No!” -- “Or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time,” Bush said to a thunderous roar.

He also defended the invasion of Iraq in sweeping terms that cast his decision as part of a larger destiny, a vision for quelling terrorism and bringing about peace in the Middle East.

“I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century,” Bush said. “I believe all these things because freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is the almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.”

In a surprising security breach inside the heavily guarded hall, Bush was twice interrupted by hecklers -- minutes apart on opposite sides of the arena -- who were drowned out by chants of “four more years” as security personnel hauled them away.

The protesters were identified by Medea Benjamin, an organizer with CodePink, a grassroots peace organization based in Venice, as Jodie Evans, 49, of Los Angeles, June Brashares, 40, of San Francisco and Jorge Medina, 44, of upstate New York. Benjamin said the three got into the convention on passes obtained from delegates.

Following several days of rowdy demonstrations at the convention, the protests quieted Thursday, with only a handful reported by police. The total number of arrests during the four-day convention was more than 1,700.

Nearly 100 AIDS protesters swarmed into Grand Central Station during the early morning commute, unfurling banners and holding signs, and police made 14 arrests. A protest also surfaced in Union Square, where a large crowd held candles during Bush’s speech.

A judge ordered city officials held in contempt for failing to release in a timely manner nearly 500 antiwar protesters who had been arrested this week. State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo imposed a fine of $1,000 for every demonstrator held past a 5 p.m. deadline.

The president concluded his speech on a personal note, acknowledging the polarizing figure that he had become by joking about “a few flaws.”

He poked fun at his sometimes mangled syntax: “I knew I had a problem” when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started correcting his English. “Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called walking,” Bush said.

“Now and then I come across as a little too blunt -- and for that we can all thank the white-haired lady sitting right up there,” he said, gesturing toward his tart-tongued mother, Barbara, in the presidential VIP box.

But, he concluded, “Even when we don’t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.”

The Kerry campaign did not wait for Bush’s speech to begin panning his proposals and the convention’s heavy focus on terrorism and national security.

“The economy as a whole has been treated as if it didn’t exist,” Roger Altman, a deputy Treasury secretary under President Clinton, said in a midafternoon conference call. “We all know why that is. It’s because the Bush record on the economy is dismal.”

Altman said Bush’s promotion of an “ownership society” at a time of declining wages was a false promise because the only way that many people could join the investor class was through borrowing.

“For the middle-income Americans, the ownership society is really a debt society,” Altman said. “The only ones who are going to benefit

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Notable speakers

Delegates to the GOP convention heard from a variety of speakers, each emphasizing a different element of President Bush’s reelection campaign:

California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Age: 57

California’s movie-star governor earned rave reviews for his remarks on the American dream, sparking discussion about a constitutional amendment allowing immigrants to run for president.

Quote: ‘In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re like me and couldn’t even speak English until you were in your 20s. America gave me opportunities, and my immigrant dreams came true.’

Sen. Zell Miller

Age: 72

The Georgia Democrat, the first member of an opposing party to deliver the keynote address at a political convention, unleashed an attack on Democrats and Sen. John F. Kerry.

Quote: ‘No one should dare to even think about being the commander in chief of this country if he doesn’t believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home. But don’t waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution.’

Sen. John McCain

Age: 68

The Arizona Republican pushed his differences with the president into the past, delivering a rousing endorsement of Bush’s leadership in battling terrorism.

Quote: ‘Our choice wasn’t between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents. And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.’

Rudolph W. Giuliani

Age: 60

The former New York mayor’s evocation of the Sept. 11 attacks put his name on the list of potential presidential contenders four years from now.

Quote: ‘It was here in 2001, in lower Manhattan, that President George W. Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center and said to the barbaric terrorists who attacked us, “They will hear from us.”

Barbara and Jenna Bush

Ages: 22

The president’s twin daughters, entered the spotlight with a giggly comedy routine.

Jenna: ‘We spent the last four years trying to stay out of the spotlight. Sometimes we did a little better job than others.’

Barbara: ‘Jenna and I are really not very political, but we love our dad too much to stand back and watch from the sidelines. We realized that this would be his last campaign, and we wanted to be a part of it.’

George P. Bush

Age: 28

The president’s nephew, whose mother is Mexican, discussed issues popular with Latino voters: education, tax cuts and Social Security.

Quote: ‘Our party has always represented the interests of all people seeking opportunity. We are the home of entrepreneurs -- men and women who want to know the pride of accom-plishment, the honor of self-sufficiency.’

Compiled by Times Staff

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Squaring off

The proposed presidential debate schedule:

Sept. 30: University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.

Oct. 8: Washington University in St. Louis.

Oct. 13: Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.

Proposed vice presidential debate:

Oct. 5: Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland

Big business

Business was booming at the Grand Old Market Place in the New York Hilton, where conventioneers were buying commemorative swag. What Republican could resist $16 stuffed elephants, $40 Christmas ornaments shaped like cowboy boots or $15 Bush bobblehead dolls? John F. Kerry flip-flops sold out. A popular button had a photo of Laura Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and read, “Beauty and the Beast: Bush 2004.”

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Times staff writers Nick Anderson, James Gerstenzang, Matea Gold, Janet Hook and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.