US: With major televised debates to come, the big hurdles that could trip up either candidate still lie ahead, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
President Bush hit hard on the themes of war and terrorism in his acceptance speech at the Republican Party convention in New York on Thursday evening. Again yesterday in Pennsylvania, as he took to the road he presented himself as the wartime President who should be re-elected for his tough response to 9/11.
The Republicans have clearly decided that if terrorism is the main issue they will win the election. Terrorism was not mentioned in Mr Bush's acceptance speech in 2000. But the agenda has changed since the attacks on America, and a more tired, greyer and single-minded President Bush told 5,000 cheering delegates in Madison Square Garden that only under his leadership would the United States be safer.
For this idea to be taken seriously the President had to make the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. He recalled, "I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the Twin Towers. Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, 'Whatever it takes'. A fellow grabbed me by the arm and he said, 'Do not let me down'. Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes." The message: it took Iraq.
The connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein has been made seamless. Nowhere in his eloquent, well-structured speech did Mr Bush mention Osama bin Laden, whom he once threatened to take "dead or alive". Nor was there any mention of a strategy to bring home the troops, or of any new initiative for the deadlocked Middle East problem at the heart of the terrorist war.
Mr Bush also outlined a detailed domestic agenda but his efforts here did not impress the editorial writers. "The President presented troubled, half-finished initiatives like his prescription drug plan as fully completed tasks," complained the New York Times. The Washington Post judged his acceptance speech to be a laundry list "long on ambitions but far shorter on the ways or the means to accomplish them".
The Boston Globe said that Mr Bush put "a frosting of compassionate conservatism on a message built on a harder foundation: a fierce defence of military action against terrorism and a charge of moral indecision against his Democratic challenger". The Los Angeles Times wondered if the President had left himself vulnerable to Democratic charges that he has offered few new solutions to the problems many voters consider the most pressing.
"While looking at the stars," it asked, "does President Bush risk stumbling into the ditch?" The Convention did slide into the ditch in the personal attacks on John Kerry's patriotism, as speaker after speaker derided the Democratic challenger as not steadfast enough to lead the nation in time of danger.
Introducing the President on Thursday night, Governor George Pataki of New York, evoking an old nickname of president Reagan, asked delegates to "give another one for the Gipper" and not to the "Flipper".
Standing on a specially erected circular platform carpeted with the presidential seal on Thursday evening, Mr Bush kept up the attack, accusing the Massachusetts senator of "running on a platform of increasing taxes". Mr Kerry has actually promised to reduce taxes for the middle class and remove tax cuts from the richest 2 per cent of Americans. Zell Miller's spiteful attack on John Kerry on Wednesday was a smear too far, and Republican strategists agree it may have done more harm than good.
After the Georgia senator was excoriated by all sides in the media for his anti-Kerry rant, he was "disinvited" to the President's box for the acceptance speech the next evening.
Monday is Labour day, the traditional starting point for the presidential campaign, but this tough, mean contest has been at full stretch for months.
The overall structure of the contest has not changed that much after the two conventions. The expectation is that the bounce Mr Bush expects from the Republican convention will be only a few points, and will not last. With 976 Americans killed in Iraq the death toll could well reach 1,000 before the November 2nd election day, making the casualty rate an issue that would work against the President in the days to come.
And having blasted Mr Kerry from the podium, Vice-President Cheney can expect his Halliburton record to be made an issue again in the days ahead.
The big hurdles that could trip up one or other of the candidates come with the debates, which promise to be riveting affairs. Mr Kerry has been a champion debater since his student days, and Mr Bush has always been "misunderestimated" in verbal combat. For this the country will tune in and take stock.
Some 47 million people watched the first debate between Mr Bush and Al Gore in 2000, twice the maximum number of viewers for a convention speech. The Commission on Presidential Debates has scheduled three encounters: September 30th in Coral Gables, Florida, October 8th in St Louis, Missouri, and October 13th at Tempe, Arizona.
Full text of Mr Bush's convention speech available at www.ireland.com