Republicans gathering for their party`s national convention here this week want President Bush to deliver a stunning acceptance speech that will articulate his vision for a second term.
They`re counting on the beleaguered incumbent to reverse his slide in the polls, to silence intra-party squabbling over taxes and abortion and to paint Democrat Bill Clinton as a fuzzy-minded, tax-and-spend liberal. It`s a tall order for a four-day event once viewed as a coronation.
The political stakes in Houston are no-limit, but the convention comes at a moment when many in the party think Bush already has taken the most important step toward reviving his moribund re-election effort. Last week, he retrieved James A. Baker III from his State Department post to oversee the campaign, a move that delighted party regulars.
Still, Bush faces a dizzying array of political problems, starting with polls that indicate about 30 percent of the voters approve of the job he`s doing.
Inside the party, conservatives are vexed with the president`s tax policies and what they view as his lackadaisical stewardship of the Reagan legacy.
Moderates are upset with Bush`s persistent wooing of the social conservatives and with his unflinching opposition to abortion.
Many in the party are troubled by the continuing presence of Vice President Dan Quayle on the ticket, though others staunchly support the president`s controversial partner.
Beyond the wrangling over isssues, many voters-and many delegates in Houston-wonder if Bush has the political will to succeed this time, if he is prepared to fight to hold his office. While most of the 2,120 delegates are unstinting in their loyalty to Bush, few would contest the belief that the hero of Operation Desert Storm is in big trouble on the home front.
A Newsweek poll to be published Monday shows Clinton leading Bush, 54 percent to 37 percent. A CNN-Gallup Poll last week gave the Arkansas Democrat a 19-point lead.
For Republicans, the shortfall reflects the bounce Clinton chalked up after last month`s Democratic convention and his ability to sustain that momentum as Bush`s campaign dithered.
What Republicans want from Bush is action, and the sooner the better.
”The president needs to convey a sense of optimism and direction,” said Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). ”He needs to indicate that he does have programs for the country, but is confronted with a Congress that has a vested interest in his failure.”
The convention`s agenda is arranged to redefine the Democratic ticket in the public mind and to project an image of Bush as the fellow with a firm, steady hand on the tiller.
”We want to talk about experience and judgment and who the American people want to lead,” said Charles Black, senior adviser to the Bush campaign. To that end, convention speakers, including Barbara Bush, will use the Astrodome podium to celebrate the president`s accomplishments and attack his opponents.
”The vision thing,” to use Bush`s own clumsy phrase, will be left for him to define.
On the first night of the convention, Bush will hear an endorsement from his rival in the primaries, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.
More important, the convention will hear former President Ronald Reagan make his case for Bush`s second term. It is a moment Bush strategists hope will restore the flagging spirits of some in the party who have lost faith in the incumbent.
Clinton will be portrayed as a standard-brand liberal, the callow, failed governor of a small, Southern state. His running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, will be explained away as an environmental extremist whose ideas, if acted upon, would hurt business and cripple the economy.
And much will be made of ”family values,” the issue Republicans feel puts Clinton, with those questions about marital infidelity and draft evasion, on the defensive.
”We have to draw distinctions between the parties, between who we are and who they are,” said Republican National Committee chairman Richard Bond. The most florid convention rhetoric likely will come in Tuesday`s keynote address by Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, one of Bush`s most conservative (and sharp- tongued) allies. Gramm, who holds White House ambitions for 1996, is certain to celebrate Bush`s foreign policy triumphs and assail Clinton`s inexperience in that area, as well as his economic proposals.
In contrast, the speech to re-nominate the president will be delivered Wednesday by Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, a moderate and one of Bush`s oldest friends in national politics. The former Illinois congresswoman is well-known for her support of abortion rights and her support for the rights of women in the workplace. Her presence is designed to send a salutory message to party moderates, who found little to like in last week`s platform hearings, which were dominated by the right wing.
Beyond that, GOP strategists hope Martin`s prime-time visibility-and the sight of several other prominent Republican women at the podium-will appeal to female voters in what has come to be called ”the year of the woman.”
The speech that matters most, of course, comes Thursday night, when the 68-year-old incumbent fights for his political life before a national TV audience.
Four years ago, in accepting the nomination in New Orleans, Bush spoke of himself as ”a quiet man” whose public life since his days as a naval aviator in World War II had been animated by a sense of mission.
This time, he must address the doubts of those who believe that the workaday problems of average Americans do not interest him. And he must speak to the kitchen-table concerns of voters worried about their economic future.
It`s likely that in his acceptance speech-which is not being written by Peggy Noonan, who penned the last one-Bush will offer some specific, hands-on economic remedy, perhaps a tax cut. In his hour at the microphone, the president also must find a way to present himself as an agent of change and reform in the political process, despite his status as the ultimate Washington insider.
Bush must reach out to the voting blocs-conservatives, moderate Republicans, Reagan Democrats and suburban independents-who gave him the presidency four years ago. Right now, it appears each of those constituencies views the president with a skeptical eye.
At the very least, Bush will find the local political climate friendly. In his widely traveled fashion, he will be back home, returning to the place where he wanted to convene the assembly that he hopes will launch him on the road to his political redemption.
Bush`s roots in Houston are political and professional, reaching back to his days in Congress and, before that, in the oil business.
The familial ties are tenuous; Bush`s legal residence is a $515-a-night suite in the Houstonian Hotel, and he owns a 160- by 33-foot vacant lot on Post Oak Drive in a tony residential neighborhood.
Still, this Sun Belt stronghold holds Bush-who was born in Massachusetts and who summers in Maine-as its favorite political son, along with James A. Baker III, who was born here.
The city, which played host to the 1990 Economic Summit as a dress rehearsal for this convention, aggressively sought the meeting, besting Cleveland, San Diego, St. Petersburg and New Orleans.
New Orleans suffered at the hands of former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, who ran for governor of Louisiana as a Republican last year. He lost to Democrat Edwin Edwards after being denounced by an embarrassed Bush and a nervous party establishment. Duke announced his Republican challenge to Bush shortly after that defeat, but his bid went nowhere. He will not be in Houston this week.
Four years ago Republican strategist Lee Atwater told reporters in New Orleans that the convention would allow voters to ”get a sense of George Bush-what he stands for, where he wants to go, where he wants to take the country.”
The challenge, and the irony, for Bush is that after a full term in office, his mission in Houston is no different.
