Folksy Bush to the fore as Kerry's lead is eroded

By RUPERT CORNWELL

NEW YORK - The final phase of George Bush's bid for re-election will commence with a convention orchestrated around his folksy style but portraying him as a tough leader who has waged a highly effective war on terror.

Mr Bush will spend part of his time setting out a second-term domestic agenda, including an ambitious plan to part-privatise social security, but above all Republican speech-writers will style him as far better equipped than John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, to protect America's national security.

That was his message as he campaigned on Saturday in the pivotal swing state of Ohio. It has also been the subtext of the independently sponsored television ads by a group of Vietnam veterans, accusing Mr Kerry of lying over his Vietnam record.

Mr Bush took the high road once again on Saturday, conceding in an NBC interview that the Massachusetts senator had fought "more heroically" than himself, who had served at home in the Texas Air National Guard.

But members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, as the independently funded but Republican-aligned group is called, have let it be known they have more salvoes to fire in their controversial offensive which has dominated the August political debate here.

Thanks in part to the ads, Mr Bush enters his convention in distinctly better shape than seemed likely a month ago, when the Democrats wrapped up their own show in Boston.

A national poll in the latest issue of Time magazine, giving the President a 46-44 per cent lead, follows others showing that he has eroded Mr Kerry's slim advantage at the end of July.

The party's leadership in Washington is uncompromisingly conservative. But the featured speakers this week will be moderates: Senator John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time of the terrorist attacks three years ago, and Arnold Schwarzenegger - picked to appeal to the small group of independent voters in the middle.

The last two in particular are supporters of gay and abortion rights, despite the call in the 2004 convention's political platform for bans both on gay marriage and a woman's right to have an abortion.

All will be choreographed - a minutely scripted four-day party political advertisement, leading up to Mr Bush's keynote acceptance speech on Thursday evening. He will speak not from a traditional platform, but from a small rostrum extending into the middle of the hall.

Organisers aim to create an intimate "theatre in the round" effect, bringing Mr Bush's folksy style into the living rooms of his primetime audience.

- INDEPENDENT