August 29, 2004 in Nation/World

Tight race raises stakes for GOP

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NEW YORK – On the eve of his nominating convention, President Bush is facing a tighter and tougher campaign fight than many of his fellow Republicans expected, elevating the stakes – and jitters – as Bush heads into one of the most crucial weeks of his re-election bid.

While recent public opinion polls show a slight tilt in the president’s favor, the race against Democrat John Kerry remains essentially tied, making it far too close for the comfort of several GOP strategists who say Bush has yet to present the forward-looking agenda they deem essential to winning a second term in November.

“I’d like to see him do more than just Kerry-bashing,” said Dick Dresner, a Republican consultant for candidates across the country. “He has to provide some overall vision and a few specifics around it. … He has to show some sense of optimism, where the future’s going.”

The president has promised to offer that look-ahead in his acceptance speech Thursday night, the highlight of four days of presidential pomp and political stagecraft that will begin Monday at Madison Square Garden, the fabled sports and entertainment center.

“The speech will focus on moving forward, what needs to be done in order for America to be a hopeful place, what needs to be done to spread the peace,” Bush said in an interview published Friday in USA Today. “That’s what I think a convention speech ought to be: vision and how to achieve the vision, and that’s what the people will hear.”

As the president stumped Saturday in Ohio, tens of thousands of Republican faithful, political activists and convention chroniclers poured into this hot, humid city, fortified by an army of police swarming the streets of Manhattan.

Despite the massive show of force, and the attendant street tie-ups, seen-it-all New Yorkers seemed characteristically blase.

In an opening wave of demonstrations, thousands of abortion-rights activists marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, encountering anti-abortion foes on the Manhattan side. Officers kept the two factions apart and there was no violence.

Arab-American groups, denied a rally permit for Central Park’s Great Lawn, gathered on the green anyway, largely blending in with sunbathers and softball-players.

Across the country, Kerry finished a West Coast campaign swing with a rally in Tacoma before leaving for his family’s vacation house in Nantucket, Mass. He plans to keep a low profile for much of the Republican convention.

The president, meantime, campaigned in Ohio for the second time in as many weeks.

At a stop in Lima, Bush struck a theme that White House aides said he would highlight in his acceptance speech: the power of liberty. “I believe that liberty can transform lives,” the president said. “It’s a core of my belief.”

The president is expected to use his Thursday night speech to unveil a handful of initiatives on issues such as education and healthcare, which could address two of his greatest political liabilities: doubts about his handling of the economy as well as the net loss of more than 1 million jobs since he took office in January 2001.

Repeated polls have shown that support for Bush is buoyed by public approval of the way he has handled the threat of terrorism, and that is expected to be one of the dominant themes of the convention.

The events of Sept. 11, in particular, will be a constant subtext of the gathering. Two opening night speakers, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, are expected to make Sept. 11 and Bush’s response a central theme of their remarks. “During the worst day of my life, the worst days of my life, President Bush stood by us,” Giuliani told audiences last week as he introduced Bush in a campaign swing across New Mexico. “He kept every commitment, did everything he could, to rebuild my city and to make my country better than they were before that terrible event.”

Giuliani and McCain are two of the more moderate faces that will be featured prominently during the convention.

Another is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will appear Tuesday night in a coveted prime-time speaking slot.

Democrats have derided the convention program as “a masquerade ball,” in the words of Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Republicans said it shows the breadth and open-mindedness of the GOP.

Along with Bush’s proposals for a second term, the convention program calls for plenty of contrasts with Kerry, who made his biography and Vietnam War record the centerpiece of his nominating convention last month in Boston. That left a substantive void, Republican strategists believe, that Bush and GOP convention planners are eager to fill during the next several days.

“Sen. Kerry himself dedicated only 27 seconds of a 50-minute speech to his 20-year Senate career,” Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie said in welcoming remarks Thursday to state party leaders from around the country. “You can be sure here in New York City we will be talking about President Bush’s record of accomplishments during his first term.”

But Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, said the critique of Kerry would be different – meatier and less mean-spirited – than the one Democrats aimed at Bush.

“That was name-calling in Boston,” Rove said. “We will cite what (Kerry) has said and how he has voted. We will use the things he has said and done … to make clear what the big choices are.”

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