Convention succeeds in key aims

The bright lights of the big city were good for Republicans last week. The national GOP’s four-day convention in New York City was a political success in both message and purpose.

The message to be delivered was a dual one. First, Republicans wanted to focus on George W. Bush’s leadership qualities. Second, they wanted to temper the GOP’s sometimes hard-edged reputation, adjusting its torque to align more with Bush’s penchant for “compassionate conservatism.”

The purpose for the convention, like all conventions, was to propel the nominee forward, creating enough Big Mo to carry Bush forward through Election Day.

En route to nominating Bush for a second term, Republicans wanted their convention message to reinforce to voters – especially fence-sitting ones – that Bush is the guy you want in the White House when it comes to leadership and the fight against worldwide terrorism.

After all, if there’s one measure on which most every poll agrees that Bush leads John F. Kerry, it’s leadership. And it’s also leadership that often figures to be the deciding factor among wishy-washy voters. So when convention producers sought to distill their message to a single word, there was little doubt what it would be.

To drive home their Bush-the-leader message, Republicans put before America three of the most recognizable – and accepted – faces to preach it: Arizona Sen. John McCain, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. They also just happened to be three of the GOP’s most well known moderates.

McCain and Giuliani are heroes in their own rights. Vietnam veteran McCain’s POW history is legendary, and he’s made a political career of talking straight and attracting an increasingly national following. He’s taken on populist positions, working to reform big-money politics and bashing his fellow senators’ pork-barrel proclivities. Voters in both parties love him, and Bush knows it.

Giuliani, of course, is “America’s mayor.” Distraught Americans saw him as leadership personified when the Twin Towers fell in his city and he took charge of total chaos. So who better to endorse Bush’s leadership than a guy who exudes it? Three years since the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani still strikes a chord in Middle America, which is why he was given a primary speaking role.

And then there’s Schwarzenegger. While his remedy to California’s ongoing fiscal crisis is not one any governor of any state should emulate – he borrowed $15 billion for general operating costs, taking the Golden State’s debt to Conan levels – he’s nevertheless exceedingly popular throughout the country. And you’ve got to admit that his Bush-boosting speech was fabulous.

The McCain-Giuliani-Schwarzenegger endorsements were precisely on message, underscoring in every possible way that Bush is the man we want leading us in these troubled times. And that they were able to put a less hard-core face on the national GOP was a bonus Bush needs.

You see, Bush has got to fight for the undecided voters in the middle – and folks in the middle, by definition, don’t like extremes. It’s a near given that every 2000 Gore voter will go with Kerry this year; however, it’s not a given that every 2000 Bush voter will now stick with the president.

Many middle-of-the-road independents who question the propriety of the Iraq war or have been disaffected by the up-and-down national economy are destined to break Kerry’s way. Bush must minimize that flight. Hence, McCain, Giuliani and Schwarzenegger.

Kerry, of course, can’t allow Bush to dam the stream of independents flowing Kerry’s way. That’s why the Democrat held a midnight rally Thursday in all-important Ohio about an hour after Bush wrapped up his acceptance speech. Kerry couldn’t afford for Friday’s headlines to be all Bush, and he had to blunt the post-convention bounce in the polls Bush was destined to get.

But did Kerry succeed? Seemingly not. Polls are showing that during the Republican convention and in the few days since it ended, Bush is taking control of what to date has been a neck-and-neck race. A Time poll (taken Aug. 31-Sept. 2) gives Bush a 10-point lead while a Newsweek poll (taken Sept. 2-3) gives the president an 11-point one.

The Bush bounce doesn’t come so much from any real agenda specifics he laid out in his NYC speech. Bush offered no more specifics than did Kerry in his Boston speech. Bush’s bounce springs from what the first President Bush called “the vision thing,” especially when it comes to the one issue that’s dominating the headlines – the war (and, by near extension, terrorism).

Heck, even the Washington Post has editorialized in Bush’s favor on this point: Referring to Bush’s convention speech, the Post opined: “… Bush articulated a broader, more ambitious – and, we’d say, more compelling – vision than has Mr. Kerry of the stakes of this [Iraq] conflict and the means needed to win it.”

The emerging Bush lead also most certainly comes from Kerry being taken so far off message – for the past four weeks, no less – by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ads, which draw into question some of Kerry’s Vietnam heroics. Rightly or wrongly, these ads make voters question the one thing Kerry has been promoting – his commander-in-chief abilities.

Many will agree that the GOP convention was more negative in tone than positive. But in terms of it being an effective medium to reassure undecided voters of Bush’s leadership abilities, soften the Republican Party’s rep, and propel the president’s campaign past Kerry’s, it was a smashing success.

Here’s to hoping the next two months will be as good for Bush and the Republican Party as the past week has been.