NEW YORK — The official theme of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday was "People of Compassion," a tribute to the kinder, gentler side of President Bush's conservative administration. But it wasn't compassion that vaulted moderate Republicans to center stage this week; it was the cold, hard reality of electoral arithmetic.
In its heart, Bush's Republican Party is deeply conservative, but its head is telling it that Bush needs moderate voters too to win closely contested Northern states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. "We need both sides to win," campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish said.
"This presidential election is going to pivot on 17 battleground states that essentially reflect moderate views," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), a leader of the party's moderate wing. "We wouldn't be having problems in those states if we had taken positions that could attract more centrist voters. That's why I think [the Bush campaign] has come to the reality of trying to attract moderates with the kind of positioning you're seeing at this convention."
The convention's studiously moderate tone is evident in its choice of prime-time speakers: centrists such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arizona Sen. John McCain, who in nonelection seasons have had wary relationships with the party's conservative core. It is evident as well in the program's omissions: Viewers had to listen closely if they hoped to detect the party's platforms on divisive social issues such as abortion or gay marriage.
And it was evident in small gestures to Republican moderates, such as the unexpected appearance of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson at a party for the Republican Majority for Choice, a GOP abortion rights group.
"That is a major turnaround," said Snowe, who was shouted down by antiabortion conservatives when she and then-California Gov. Pete Wilson spoke in favor of abortion rights at the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego. "That certainly is reaching out in ways that haven't been displayed in a very long time in the Republican Party."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and other Democrats derided this as a Potemkin convention, a pageant of moderation staged to obscure the conservatism underneath. (They didn't mention that their own convention in Boston, a month ago, took similar pains to smooth the rough edges from the party's largely liberal message.)
