AS THE Republican convent ion switches into attack mode against President Clinton, the memory of an opening night drenched in Rea years nostalgia still lingers.
But mixed with the emotion was the excitement of the country's most popular man, retired Gen Colin Powell, addressing the delegates as "my fellow Republicans".
His enthusiastic endorsement of the Dole Kemp ticket is expected to give it another boost in the polls in the best week the party has had this year. But if America's first black chief of staff electrified the convention with his ringing support for Bob Dole, he has also challenged the party to be more inclusive towards minorities.
And he was not afraid to declare his pro-choice stance to a convention which had earlier adopted a strong anti-abortion plank.
While the Governor of California, Mr Pete Wilson, and the Governor of Massachusetts, Mr William Weld, were not allowed to speak because they wanted to appeal for more tolerance on abortion, such is the prestige of Gen Powell that his statement of belief in a woman's right to choose" raised just a few boos from the delegates.
Gen Powell had the difficult task of following Nancy Reagan and a video celebrating the high moments of her husband's presidency. The images of the beloved "Gipper", now stricken with Alzheimer's disease, were too much for the thousands of delegates and tears flowed among men and women, old and young.
Then Gen Powell strode to the rostrum saluted the giant image of Ronald Reagan, and gave a speech praising the American dream and explaining in simple words why he was a Republican.
"I come before you this evening as a retired soldier, a fellow citizen who has lived the American dream to the fullest, as someone who believes in that dream and wants that dream to become reality for every American."
His immigrant parents who arrived in New York 70 years ago "might be black and treated as second class citizens, but stick with it, because in America, justice will eventually triumph and the powerful, searing words of promise of the founding fathers will come true.
But the man Mr Dole had first feared might run for the presidency and then badly wanted to be his running mate urged that the Republicans "must always be the party of inclusion". "The descendant of a slave or of a struggling miner in Appalachia must be as welcome and find as much appeal in our party as any other American."
The general challenged official party policy when he said. "You all know that I believe in a woman's right to choose and I strongly support affirmative action" a reference to the quota system in favour of minorities.
But he added that the party had "big enough people to disagree on individual issues and still work together for our common goal, restoring the American dream".
There was appropriate harmony on a night when Nancy Reagan told the convention that its hero, in spite of his debilitating illness, still retained his optimism and belief in the spirit of America.
He still "sees the shining city on the hill", she said, as the tears flowed among delegates who remembered that Mr Reagan at the convention four years ago in Houston, feeling the effects of his disease, had foretold that it would be his last appearance.
It was left to another former Republican president, Mr Gerald Ford, to delight the delegates with his sally at the incumbent of the White House. "A few years ago, when I suddenly found myself president, I said I was a Ford, not a Lincoln [a well known American car]. Today, what we have in the White House is neither a Ford nor a Lincoln."
Here Mr Ford paused and the audience waited for the punch line. "What we have is a convertible Dodge." Roars of applause. Then, "Isn't it time for a trade in?" Now that the Republicans have got the Reagan years nostalgia washed out of their system, they are itching to bring an end to the Clinton years.