Mr George W. Bush had good reason to be well satisfied with his Republican Party convention as he set out on a tour of strategic states yesterday. The job of projecting his candidature and personality to the US electorate was well accomplished, as was the task of cultivating the image of a party united around his brand of "compassionate conservatism". Despite widespread apathy among voters with the US political process, and the impression that these conventions are now overwhelmingly choreographed by party managers, these are no mean achievements as the final stage of the presidential campaign begins. They will make Mr Bush a difficult man to defeat.
His principal campaign theme was clearly identified in his acceptance speech as marking a new beginning after eight years of Democratic Party rule. President Clinton's record was artfully characterised as containing "so much promise, to no great purpose". Strikingly absent was the obsessive concern with the President's character that led to the Lewinsky impeachment proceedings, a move now seen as counter-productive by Mr Bush's electoral strategists. Absent too from the platform was the former Republican Speaker of the House, Mr Newt Gingrich, who personified a brand of aggressive conservatism which gave the Republicans control of the two houses of Congress, but which has now been re-configured in the name of a more inclusive and moderate approach.
In many ways this transformation of message and image is a tribute to President Clinton's own "triangulation" technique of adapting opponents' policies for his own political purposes. Thus on his stated priorities of improving education, strengthening and saving social security, cutting taxes, rebuilding US military strength and overhauling welfare he has attempted to define the electoral agenda by appropriating Mr Al Gore's policies. A Democratic spokesman said Mr Bush is "compassionate for the rich, conservative for everyone else", revealing that issues of distribution and compatibility of these objectives will dominate the campaign in its closing stages.
Mr Bush's advisers have identified suburban swing voters, Catholics and Latinos as crucial groups to be won over. They were well represented on the platform at Philadelphia, if not in the conference hall itself. It will be a real challenge for Mr Bush to appeal to such constituencies, while holding on to the traditional party base represented by the delegates. His choice of an intelligent and appealing hard conservative, Mr Dick Cheney, as his vice-presidential candidate takes care of much of that problem. But Mr Bush may find it difficult to stick to the moderate centre if he is to mobilise opposition to Mr Gore. He might have to take more account than he expects of a piece of advice offered by David Willetts, an adviser to the British Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, that "floating voters don't necessarily have middle-ofthe-road views". It is in the working out of that observation that much of the interest of this election may be found.