Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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That Last Hour is Coming

Thursday, August 3, 2000

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Republican National Convention

The number of people crowding into the Comcast First Union Center last night increased dramatically as the focus went from themes to candidates.

The speech of Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney looked great on television. Cheney presented himself to the American public as a man who has the confidence of a man who is confident of his abilities, eager for this challenge, and ready to help govern the world.

He had enough meat in the speech to get the delegates on their feet and chanting for the first time, really, at this convention. The previous major speakers - Laura Bush, Colin Powell, and John McCain - laid the logical rationale for a Bush-Cheney candidacy.

Last night, Cheney introduced - for the first time - a strong emotional aspect to these proceedings. Democrats, according to instant focus groups - didn't like it much, but Republicans ate it up.

Cheney's speech was his first chance to fight back against the raging Democratic attacks on his Congressional voting record.

Years ago we were taught by Mike Deaver that the pictures always overwhelm the words. The image of Dick Cheney last night will make it very difficult for the Democrats to portray him as a right-wing extremist.

Democratic strategists in attendance here have begun - off the record - to admit they have an uphill fight. One told me Tuesday night that the Gore campaign will continue to try attack points until they find one which sticks.

Last night, another told me they would continue to attack Bush on his record in Texas and make that a metaphor for the way he would govern the country. "We have to make this a referendum on Bush," he said. "We need to attack him and his Texas record every day."

I suggested it might be dangerous to attack Bush in a state where Bush is very popular among a wide swath of the electorate, where Democrats in the State Legislature have gone on record defending him, and where he won re-election in a walk.

I told the second Democrat that I had just two words for their Texas strategy: Seventy Percent.

The major skyboxes, hospitality suites, and reception areas were all jammed last night. At noon yesterday the GOP held a luncheon at which the Governor and Mrs. Bush as well as Secretary and Mrs. Cheney appeared.

The luncheon was originally booked for about 2,300 people. More than 3,200 showed up - for a lunch, to see four people they would see again twice in the next 36 hours.

A reporter asked me if I thought we had reached a high water mark in corporate spending at these conventions. I said every time someone has thought a high water mark had been reached when it comes to money and politics, they have had to scurry farther up the beach the next time the green tide has come in.

The other day actor and activist Daniel Stern (Diner, Home Alone, etc.) was everywhere talking about his position on violence in the media. I'm not clear on what his position is, but politicians and show folk have, as we know, a natural - if somewhat worrisome - affinity for each other.

Every time you turned around, it seemed, Stern was being interviewed on radio, on dot-coms, and on local and cable television.

Last night, now that the focus is totally on the candidates, I saw Stern walking down the street, in the rain, by himself.

Getting off the bus back at my hotel, a small group of young people, still deeply committed to the grunge movement, began shouting that they didn't like us, that we should go home, and that we should do some other stuff which doesn't have to be repeated here.

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