The RNC: A User's Manual
CBSNews.com producer Jarrett Murphy previews the Republican National Convention.
Congratulations, Republicans! You are about to become the proud owners of a sparkling new 2004 convention — a four-day chance to make the case for the re-election of President Bush.
When you remove the convention from its package at Madison Square Garden on Monday, install the batteries and flick the "on" switch, you'll notice that RNC 2004 is a state-of-the-art machine with all the latest gadgets – from the jumbo video screen for biographical films to the innovative circular stage that The New York Times reports Mr. Bush will use for his convention address.
But don't let that "new convention" smell get to your head.
RNC 2004 has complicated features that require special handling. There is a platform built on conservative principles. There are speakers who hew to the middle of the road. And there's a site downtown, where the World Trade Center once stood, that is as politically dangerous as it is symbolically powerful.
Here are some simple instructions for getting the most out of your convention 2004:
Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor who is attending his 16th national convention (eight Democratic, eight Republican), recalls that the most effective ones he's seen were the Democratic gatherings in 1976 and 1992 and the three GOP conclaves of the 1980s.
"I regret to say they were effective because they followed the script almost perfectly and the party was able to communicate its message because all of the people participating were automatons," Sabato said.
Four days is not a lot of time to begin with and the major networks will be broadcasting mere hours of the convention, so the GOP must use its time wisely to get its message out.
"This is not debate," said John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "It is a commercial — or, to put it in a better light, it's a chance for a party to put out a message."
"That message must be one of unity," he says. But while Republicans are united behind Mr. Bush, it's on the issues where things get tricky.
The Republican platform, which will be ratified at the convention on Monday, will apparently support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and oppose federal funding for stem cell research. Those positions could rile moderate Republicans.
Apparently, the moderates will just have to deal with it.
"They have to keep the platform precisely as they have it written – to do otherwise would cause a rift in the base, and this may be a base election," said Sabato. "They can't afford any defections."
But Roger Stone, a Republican strategist who has been involved with eight presidential campaigns dating back to Richard Nixon, thinks the base has to be widened.
"I think the president's greatest challenge is getting beyond the hard-core right and the religious right and figuring out how to get back many of the suburban moderates who voted for compassionate conservatism — people who are fiscally conservative but socially moderate," Stone said.
But since the platform is unlikely to reach out to voters at the center, the action at the convention podium must do so. In other words, says Stone, "the less we see of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and their colleagues the better."
The speakers' list suggests the GOP has taken this idea to heart. Prominent slots have gone to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, the keynote speaker.
The 1992 GOP convention is remembered about as fondly by Republicans as the Black Death is by Europeans. It was dominated by a speech in which failed presidential candidate Pat Buchanan extolled "Judeo-Christian values," lamented the "raw sewage of pornography" and declared that a religious and cultural war was under way for the soul of America.
"God awful," says Quinnipiac University pollster Maurice Carroll of Buchanan's speech, which is generally believed to have alienated many mainstream voters, tainted the rest of the convention and all but doomed the first President Bush.
Fortier believes no one on the podium at MSG will repeat the mistakes Buchanan made, mainly because "the president, while tough and hawkish on foreign policy, is an optimist and is somebody that puts forward a positive vision."
And indeed, the premier event of the convention is Mr. Bush's Thursday night address. Experts agree his speech is the week's crucial event. They disagree on the task he faces.
"I just think the president has to be himself," said Stone. "One of the reasons that voters like him, and one of the reasons that he connects with voters in the way John Kerry never connects with voters, is he is a plainspoken, regular guy."
"His aim is I think relatively simple: It is to remind the country who he is," said Fortier.
"Don't reinvent yourself," Fortier advises the president. "You are who you are. People know who you are."
But Sabato thinks the president faces tougher going on Thursday.
"He's got to make the most effective defense of his actions in Iraq and the economy than he's ever made and he has to lay out a convincing agenda for the second term," Sabato said. "That's a lot for one speech."
For tips, Sabato said, Mr. Bush should consult George H.W. Bush's "Read My Lips" speech in 1988, or Al Gore's "Kiss Tipper" address in 2000, both of which salvaged otherwise ho-hum conventions.
"Bush doesn't in anyway have to be negative," said Fortier. "There are going to surrogates, others who are going to be called upon to pose the contrast."
The question is whether Vice President Dick Cheney should be the one to lead the charge against Kerry. Sabato thinks Democrats were upset that their veep nominee, John Edwards, preserved his nice-guy image rather than going after the Bush team in his convention speech. Swinging the brickbat is what running mates are for, he argues.
"There's a reason why they all do it, and particularly for Cheney — he has nothing to lose. He's not running for president," Sabato said.
RNC 2004 takes place only a few stops on the A train from where the twin towers fell, and the convention ends a mere nine days before the third anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
Sept. 11 was a landmark event in U.S. history that has dominated the Bush presidency. The president's re-election pitch is anchored with his role as a "war president" who is ever mindful of the "lessons of Sept. 11."
Given the importance of the event to Mr. Bush's appeal, and the convention's location and timing, it will be tempting to Republicans to make ample use of the symbolic power of the tragedy. But overdoing it is dangerous.
"I guess I would avoid making it a real direct focus, or a celebration of the response to Sept. 11 in a direct sense," says Fortier. Too much emphasis on the tragedy and "you're going to have victims' families who may disagree on various points with the president. You're going to have the charge that your politicizing Sept. 11."
Stone agrees that Sept. 11 is tricky territory.
"I think it is very risky but I have every confidence that the president will not do anything tasteless," he said. "There is a historical record: He was president of the United States when this happened; he did take decisive action."
But "at the juncture where you appear to be profiting from it, it is counterproductive."
Much of what delegates do during convention week is out the view of cameras. The free meals, open bars and get-togethers aren't there to make a case to the American people at large. They exist to help maintain the organizational base that any party depends on.
"The function of the convention I think people don't see on TV is this is the one chance for the party to come together every four years," said Fortier.
In other words, the networking that goes on at the sidelines of RNC 2004 is important, too.
Plus, there are months of hard-slog campaigning ahead. These four days in Manhattan are time to party.
"I don't think the Republicans really have an awful lot to do," says Carroll, except "enjoy New York City. That's why they're here."
By Jarrett Murphy