Republican Convention

NEW YORK -- Susan Molinari, tonight's keynote speaker at the Republican convention, is the first to admit she doesn't exactly come from the wing of the Grand Old Party known for great oratory."

TONIGHT AT the Democratic convention, they'll wheel out Christopher Reeve for all the world to see. Everyone except Christopher Reeve (and a few other disabled people in the crowd, strategically placed in view of the TV cameras) will stand.Many will weep. And then they'll smile, wiping away tears, as Reeve speaks.It will be an emotional moment, as we once again see Superman in a wheelchair, we hear Superman's determination to some day climb out of that wheelchair and we root for Superman to fly, or at least to walk.

WASHINGTON -- A bunch of the nation's 31 Republican governors met privately with prospective GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole here the day before he announced his decision to quit the Senate. In their discussion about his lagging campaign, Senator Dole never mentioned his intent.That fact suggested the great weight he and his strategists placed on the shock value of the announcement. Certainly in Washington and political circles elsewhere, the news was indeed a shocker, considering Mr. Dole's long romance with the Senate and particularly his status as its majority leader.

It's not a teachers' strike this time. The political leaders of Maryland walked out on the school children of Baltimore.Chicago is a toddling town. Those Democrats will get out there and toddle.This is the first time that the model for a Democratic convention is the preceding (yawn) Republican convention.Pravda is gone. It's hard to know what to disbelieve.Pub Date: 8/26/96

SAN DIEGO -- As television cameras followed Jack Kemp across the convention floor Tuesday night, Victor Clark, a member of the Maryland delegation, tried to make himself conspicuous."

SAN DIEGO -- Tonight is Bob Dole's big night at the GOP convention. But a select group of Republicans in San Diego is already thinking about tomorrow.They are the party's rising stars, its next generation of presidential candidates. And unless Dole wins in November, their moment has arrived.The Republican Class of 2000 -- the Millennial Class -- would include some veterans of past campaigns, certainly Patrick J. Buchanan and quite likely Jack Kemp, now given a second chance at presidential politics.

REMEMBER THAT BIG "bounce" in the polls that Bob Dole received after his week in the spotlight at the Republican convention? Well, now it is Bill Clinton's turn to bounce back at the Democrats' week-long meeting in Chicago. While this convention will lack any hint of drama or suspense, it should have something only an incumbent president can produce -- newsworthy events tailored to keep all those television viewers back in Baltimore and elsewhere tuned in.Gone are the rock 'em, sock 'em Democratic gatherings, known for their shrill protests and divisive rhetoric.

SAN DIEGO -- At the opening of national party conventions, it's traditional for the host state governor, especially if he is of the party holding the affair, to extend an official welcome. Not Pete Wilson, not this time.Instead, the California governor who has put himself conspicuously at the forefront of the abortion-rights forces at the Repub- lican National Convention here, declined the honor, saying that his appearance would distract from the welcoming speech of San Diego's Republican mayor, Susan Golding.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY assembles in San Diego tomorrow with its presidential candidate 20 points behind in the polls, its platform far more conservative than the electorate as a whole, its opponent adroitly punching the right political buttons, its control of the Congress in jeopardy, its loyalists deeply divided over abortion and economic policy and -- surprisingly -- its dominance in the nation's on-going ideological debate acknowledged even by Democrats.For...

SAN DIEGO -- Punctuating the call for inclusiveness that has )) rung out from the Republican convention podium all week, Jack Kemp reached out to Americans "of every color and background" in his speech last night accepting his party's vice presidential nomination."

Greg Waterworth began debating politics with his mother when he was about 12 years old. They would stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning, each arguing their points, he said. "Sometimes I defended the Republicans, and sometimes I defended the Democrats," said Waterworth of Forest Hill. "Usually the argument ended when things turned personal. I went to my room and slammed the door, and my mother went to hers." He learned a lot during his heated discussions with his mother. Five years later, he got his inaugural glance at politics when he was selected to be a volunteer page at the Republican National Convention.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele called John McCain a leader who "understands the life lessons of those who sacrifice" last night during a Republican convention address that included a plea for voters to "put your country first." Steele introduced a convention hall and television viewers to his mother, Maebell Turner, for the second time in four years. Last night, he called Turner "a sharecropper's daughter who throughout her life suffered many hardships" but who instilled in him "the ideal of putting family, community [and]

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Deprived of sleep and the chance to change his clothes, Michael S. Steele landed here Sunday night and was whisked to the cavernous Fox News tent at the Republican convention for yet another national television appearance. The former Maryland lieutenant governor hugged Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and bumped fists with conservative commentator Sean Hannity as he took his seat on an elevated, red-carpeted stage. Clad in linen slacks and a purple shirt beneath his blazer, Steele delivered the kind of smooth defense of John McCain that has made him a regular on the network.

The NFL's Thursday night season opener will match the Super Bowl-champion New York Giants and the Washington Redskins, with the game possibly starting 1 1/2 hours earlier to avoid clashing with the Republican National Convention. The game is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Sept. 4 - the concluding night of the Republican convention - and will be televised by NBC. League spokesman Greg Aiello said yesterday that the NFL is talking with the network about changing the game's starting time to 7 p.m. The Redskins' participation was confirmed to the Associated Press by a person familiar with the NFL schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the league has not announced it. Seahawks -- Pro Bowl cornerback Marcus Trufant and Seattle have agreed to a six-year, $50.2 million contract that runs through 2013.

NEW YORK -- The signs literally seemed to foreshadow Fox News Channel's ratings success at the Republican National Convention last week. One of them, a 30-foot-high banner across from Madison Square Garden, boasted that the top-rated cable news station was "powerful" -- a claim that is at once bold and incomprehensible. I don't even know what that means for a news organization. If you find power in numbers, however, maybe the boast wasn't misplaced. Throughout the week, Fox News consistently attracted more viewers to its convention coverage than either of its main cable competitors -- or any of the broadcast networks.

ON THE day before George W. Bush's address to the nation, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith sits in a Towson restaurant and mulls over the curious Alice in Wonderland disconnect between the Republican convention as it preens before its fun-house mirror and life as it is actually lived in the rest of America. The tone of the convention could not be more self-congratulatory unless it were Democratic. That's the nature of political conventions. Everybody at the Republican convention talks about the president's great leadership abilities.

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Falling confetti and balloons were just settling on the floor of the Republican National Convention in New York when Sen. John Kerry stepped before throngs at a midnight rally for Democrats here in Ohio's western corner and lashed back at the GOP messages that have dominated this week. "For three days in New York, instead of talking about real plans for creating jobs, strengthening the economy, expanding health care and bringing down gas prices, we heard almost nothing but anger and insults from the Republicans," the Massachusetts senator told a crowd of more than 10,000 cheering supporters.

New York's proud parent Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took time out yesterday to gloat about how smoothly his city has handled the convention. The city has shown this week that "this is where you get your message out," he said. "New York is hot at the moment." Complaining that "every story the press writes is about the potential for a calamity," Bloomberg, who built the media empire bearing his name, argued that journalists had scared people needlessly. "The subways worked, you could take the subways right into Penn Station," he said.

Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat Georgia "I never dreamed that the (Democratic) party was as far left as it is until I went to Washington." Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa "There's a very distinct difference between the two candidates and somebody needs to express it, and I wish the president could express it more." Filmmaker Michael Moore "I now know what th Christians probably felt like walking into the Coliseum." Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina "The winning combination is Republicans who can sell conservative philosophy to a wider audience, showing acceptance to moderates."

NEW YORK -- As he strolled proudly into Madison Square Garden last night, wearing a platter-sized Bush-Cheney campaign button that said "Everything is bigger in Texas," Wayne Turner said there is one image he is hoping not to see during the Republican convention this week: the one of President Bush standing at Ground Zero with a bullhorn days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I hope they don't show that video," said Turner, a 67-year-old alternate delegate from Waxahachie, Texas. "There is a risk the media will pick up on that and say we're just using 9/11."