GOP Lays Out Convention Agenda
Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, a Democrat who long ago endorsed President Bush for re-election, will deliver the keynote address at the Republican National Convention, party officials announced Thursday.
Miller will speak on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden in New York on the third night of the convention.
"In 1992, Senator Miller delivered the keynote address in the very same arena at the Democrats' convention," GOP chairman Ed Gillespie said in making the announcement. "We're honored he'll be taking the stage at the Garden this year for President Bush."
Gillespie also announced the convention's theme – "Fulfilling America's Promise: Building a Safer World and a More Hopeful America"- and the lineup of featured speakers for each evening's program.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain will highlight the convention's opening night on Monday, Aug. 30.
Tuesday will feature first lady Laura Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Vice President Dick Cheney will speak along with Miller on Wednesday.
President Bush will accept the party's nomination and lay out his vision for the next four years in a speech on Thursday.
Miller's voting record bears little resemblance to many other Democrats in the Senate. He holds a 65 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, compared to a Kerry's 5 percent rating.
He has penned a book entitled: "A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat," called the later-discredited intelligence on Iraq a "powerful, irrefutable case" for war and lauded the Bush tax cut as "a bold plan for tax relief to get more money out of Washington and put it back into the pockets of the workers and the small business owners who earned it."
In May, reacting to the furor over the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Miller said critics of the abuse were "rushing to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Pushing and pulling and shoving and leaping over one another to assign blame and point the finger at America the Terrible. Lining up in long lines at the microphones to offer apologies to those poor, pitiful Iraqi prisoners." He said he did not support the abuse.
In his 1992 keynote speech at the Democratic convention, Miller said, "Mr. Bush told us he was a quiet man, who hears the voices of quiet people. Today we know the truth. George Bush is a timid man, who hears only the voices of caution and the status quo. Let's face facts. George Bush just doesn't get it. He doesn't see it. He doesn't feel it, and he's done nothing about it. That's why we cannot afford four more years."