What the GOP is determined to prove

The curtain rose Monday night on a Republican Party determined to present President George W. Bush as the right man to lead a country that is at war and gaining in prosperity.

Whether the party succeeds in its portrayal may depend on two key points:

1. Whether evidence of an improving economy extends beyond the well-to-do enjoying tax cuts, to the middle-class workforce that has experienced serious job loss.

2. More important, it depends on how American voters see that war: As a fight against stateless terrorists bent on attacking the homeland, or as a war on foreign soil that now has gone on longer than US involvement in World War I.

Opening night of the Republican National Convention didn't address domestic issues.

But it did address the war, attempting to recall and perhaps revive the spirit of national cohesiveness and resolve seen in the months after September 11, 2001.

Speeches by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator and war hero John McCain also aimed to convince voters that the invasion and occupation of Iraq - despite the lack of weapons of mass destruction or direct links to 9/11 - was necessary to US security as well as to the spread of peace and democracy in the Middle East.

Part of the scenario in New York is to have George W. Bush symbolically bask in the reflected glory and attractiveness of such nationally popular Republicans as Mr. Giuliani, Senator, Sen. MaCain, and movie star-turned-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - all men who are to the left of Mr. Bush on some key social issues.

"I believe as strongly today as ever, the mission was necessary, achievable and noble," McCain told the delegates. The fact that McCain has found fault with some aspects of the war and was once a bitter political rival of Bush seemed designed to make the Arizona senator's remarks all that more legitimate.

Will the portrayal of Bush as a resolute commander-in-chief ring true with voters?

"Bush is perceived as being a strong leader," says John Allen Williams, professor of political science at Loyola University in Chicago. "It has as much to do with his demeanor as his decisions." For example, says Mr. Williams, Bush seems to connect better with people that Kerry - especially people in the military, even though he did not serve in Vietnam.

"He has a certain common touch that Kerry lacks," says Williams, a retired US Naval Reserve captain.

Bush is determined not to suffer the fate of his father - resounding defeat in attempting to get reelected. The younger Bush may tout his "compassionate conservatism." But it's all hardball when election time rolls around, as former opponents McCain and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards have found out in recent years.

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