Posted on 09/02/2004 10:43:11 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - President Bush (news - web sites) dropped by Madison Square Garden this afternoon to see the stage from which he will deliver his prime-time speech tonight.
Bush planned to use his convention address to encourage Americans to keep him on the job and to offer himself as a resolute wartime commander in chief with ambitious plans for a second term. His speech will touch off a two-month dash to the finish line in a nation that seems as closely divided now as it was four years ago.
"I proudly accept," he intoned from the podium today, then joked with journalists: "My fellow members of the press corps, especially cameramen, tax relief is on the way. Don't spend it all in one place."
Joined by his parents, President Bush and his wife Laura attended a late-morning service at a Park Avenue church before visiting the convention site.
As Bush prepared to accept the Republican nomination for a second term, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) portrayed his boss as a decisive commander-in-chief. "He doesn't waffle," Cheney said Thursday.
"That's exactly what we need in a president. We don't need indecision or confusion," Cheney said at a breakfast with Ohio delegates on the concluding day of the Republican National Convention.
Cheney, who unleashed a withering attack on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) in his speech to the convention Wednesday night, cited Ohio's importance in deciding the election and why he believes Bush is the right person to be president.
"When he has to make a decision, he doesn't waffle, he doesn't agonize over it," Cheney told the Ohio gathering.
No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. Bush carried the state narrowly in 2000 but polls show it to be a dead heat this year.
Rep. Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, a close friend of the Bush family, will play the part of Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (news - web sites) in Cheney's preparation for this fall's vice presidential debate.
Meanwhile, about 100 anti-Bush demonstrators staged a quick, loud and well-organized protest at Grand Central Terminal during Thursday's rush hour, unfurling banners and colorful balloons that called on the president to do more in the fight against AIDS (news - web sites). Nineteen people were arrested after they refused police orders to leave.
Convention-related arrests for the week number more than 1,700, far surpassing those made in much more violent circumstances at Chicago's 1968 Democratic convention.
The Bush family, friends and top aides attended the worship service Thursday at the Church of Our Savior organized by his re-election campaign. The Rev. George William Rutler told the gathering, "Three years ago our nation suffered a terrible storm. Some thought God was asleep... If the winds that blow are not rebuked, there will be anarchy."
The closing prayer came from a Muslim clergyman.
Bush, who arrived in this fortified convention city Wednesday night at the end of a three-day, six-state campaign dash, will boast of his record and sketch the domestic agenda he would pursue if re-elected, a goal that eluded his father. He'll also talk — sometimes in personal terms, his advisers said — about how the terrorist attacks altered him and the world.
"Government must change with the changing world to make people's lives easier — to give people a chance to be able to realize the full promise of tomorrow," Bush told thousands of cheering supporters at a campaign rally Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio.
The speech also will offer an agenda that includes initiatives to simplify the tax code and help people buy homes, start businesses, hone job skills and set up tax-free retirement and health care accounts, aides said.
Ahead of Bush's acceptance address, Cheney and convention keynoter Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record), D-Ga., unleashed a scathing barrage of attacks on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
"His back-and-forth reflects a habit of indecision and sends a message of confusion," Cheney told GOP delegates Wednesday night. "Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual. America sees two John Kerrys."
Delegates roared their approval of Cheney's broadside against Kerry, some joining in the taunts by shouting "flip flopper, flip flopper" and waving flip-flop sandals in the air.
A group of Democratic mayors told reporters the GOP convention was filled with rancor that won't play well with voters. "Delegates love this kind of stuff, but when this settles down and we get past Labor Day, I think this convention wil prove to be a big mistake," Philadelphia Mayor John Street said.
Kerry, vacationing on Nantucket island in Massachusetts, was asked whether he took some blows from the speeches.
"I don't think so," said Kerry, who planned to campaign in Ohio on Thursday.
Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, made the round of morning talk shows Thursday to defend the ticket. He said the "over the top" GOP attacks distorted Kerry's record and made him mad.
"What we heard from the Republicans in that hall last night was an enormous amount of anger," Edwards said on CBS's "The Early Show." "If you got up and went to the refrigerator, you would have missed any discussion of what they're going to do about health care, what they're going to do about jobs, what they plan to do about this mess in Iraq (news - web sites)."
The Kerry campaign plans a seven-state advertising blitz in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Wisconsin as the first installment of a $50 million, 20-state fall ad buy. The campaign will air new ads that seek to shift the focus of the campaign to the economy. In the ads, Kerry pledges to "stand up for the middle class" and suggests that Bush "sides with the special interests."
Within minutes of his arrival in New York on Wednesday, Bush was embracing city firefighters. At a community center in Queens, the president's eyes misted as he stood among the firefighters and held a black fire helmet that read "Commander in Chief." The firefighters chanted "four more years."
"To see the courage and compassion and decency of our fellow Americans during an incredible time of stress has shaped my thinking about the future of this country," Bush said.
Much has changed since Bush stood at Ground Zero three days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and told construction workers through a bullhorn: "I can hear you. ... And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
That speech helped lead to a surge of national unity before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan (news - web sites) that went after al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and his Taliban supporters.
But as Bush seeks re-election, he is confronted by a death toll of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq that is likely to reach 1,000 by Nov. 2; a failure to find bin Laden; investigations into pre-Sept. 11 and prewar intelligence lapses; and an economy that has yet to fully rebound.
Miller's keynote address praised Bush's performance in office while blasting his Massachusetts colleague's two-decade Senate record.
"For more than 20 years, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure," Miller said.
Reacting to the pounding by Cheney and Miller, Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart said: "Slash and burn politics didn't work in 1992. They won't work now. Dick Cheney and Zell Miller looked like angry and grumpy old men."
| U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) yawns as he performs his walk through ahead of his evening speech on the final night of the 2004 Republican National Convention, at Madison Square Garden in New York, September 2, 2004. At left is presidential adviser Karen Hughes. President Bush (news - web sites), hoping to build on recent momentum in the White House race, will deliver the biggest speech of his campaign on Thursday in the city where the September 11, 2001, attacks transformed his presidency. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn US ELECTION Photos in first post are Reuters/Kevin Lamarque |
President Bush (news - web sites) gestures at Madison Square Garden in New York during a sound check Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, before accepting the party's nomination later at night during the Republican National Convention. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) stands at the podium during his afternoon walk through inside Madison Square Garde,n as the Republican National Convention prepares for the final night, in New York, September 2, 2004. Bush has been practicing the speech for a week, campaign aides said. Bush will leave New York immediately afterward for the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where he plans a morning rally on Friday to launch his two-month dash to the November 2 election. REUTERS/Brian Snyder US ELECTION
Did I miss what time he is to start? Can someone give me that?
Thanks :)
President Bush (news - web sites) holds up a baby after speaking to supporters at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio Sept. 1, 2004. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
"A Safer World, Convention Call to Order Presentation of Colors Pledge of Allegiance National Anthem Invocation |
Lynn Swann Dorothy Hamill The Honorable Michael Williams (TX) Music Music Governor George Pataki (NY) Biography President George W. Bush Biography Benediction |
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My caption:
U.S. President George W. Bush yawns as he spots the Reuters News reporter and comments to presidential advisor Karen Hughes, "Ho-hum, it's just some Old Media, Karen. Just ignore them. Find some FReepers and talk to them."
Norm - Is tonight's event airing on the West Coast at 4:45? I don't want to miss is.
Yup, it starts up about that time on CSPIN.. and then all the analysis by the talking heads will be on from ~815 pm PT on... ad nauseum ;-)
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