US: The thousands of Republicans in New York may not agree with President Bush on abortion rights or gay marriage but they know what they like about him - and it's often the same things his critics hate.
"I like his decisiveness as a leader. I like his ability to take action. I like that he doesn't care very much what other people think about him," said Christopher Tossetti, an 18-year-old student from San Marino, California, who will cast his first presidential vote in November.
Mr Bush's positions on the war in Iraq, abortion rights, same-sex marriage and limiting stem-cell research brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to New York this week.
The US President's policies are even more reviled abroad, with polls showing a rise in disapproval of the United States during his term. Foreigners dislike his go-it-alone approach to foreign policy and his unwillingness to compromise.
But inside the convention at Madison Square Garden, his supporters say it is his very willingness to take action that they admire so much.
"He's a tough cowboy who says what he means," said Vivian Berryhill (50), a delegate from Olive Branch, Mississippi. "He's got a face like flint but I think he really has a heart."
Mr Bush, who will accept the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate tonight, cultivates a straight-talking, down-to-earth image on the campaign trail and refers regularly in speeches to God and his religion.
As critics examine the President's words analytically, looking for contradictions, his supporters are looking for something else. "I look into the man's eyes and I know that he's an honest man," said Indiana delegate Barbara Glanders (50), who met the President briefly after a January 2003 speech. "I know that he's a Christian man."
Delegates like Randy Hoffman, a 43-year-old from Golden, Colorado, admire Mr Bush's commitment to fighting terrorism, which Republicans link with the war on Iraq.
"He knows America was attacked on our homeland. A lot of people want to forget that or minimize it as a criminal act," Mr Hoffman said. "Whether it's a few months or another four years, we have to fight."
Outside the convention hall, police are taking a tough line with those who oppose their President. They arrested at least 260 people on Tuesday when anti-Bush activists blocked traffic, staged anti-war protests and harassed Republican delegates. A day-long wave of civil disobedience raised tensions between police and protesters opposed to the US-led war in Iraq and other Bush administration policies.
Police have arrested more than 800 people since last Thursday in a variety of demonstrations; 200 people were put in plastic handcuffs and led to police vans after the War Resisters League began an afternoon march from the World Trade Centre, which was destroyed in the September 11th attacks, to a planned "die-in" near the Madison Square Garden convention site.
In the early evening, thousands converged around the streets in Herald Square in central Manhattan, many chanting anti-Bush statements as hundreds of police in riot gear formed long lines in front of them and put up metal barriers. - (Reuters)