NEW YORK – A Democratic keynoter at a Republican National Convention, Sen. Zell Miller accused leaders of his own party Wednesday of elevating partisan politics over national security and said Sen. John Kerry “wants to re-fight yesterday’s war” at a moment of peril for the country.
“In this hour of danger our president has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him,” the Georgia lawmaker said in remarks prepared for a prime-time address to GOP delegates and a nationwide television audience.
Miller shared top billing with Vice President Dick Cheney on the third night of a convention carefully scripted to spit-polish Bush’s image as a commander in chief worthy of four more years. “In all that we do, we will never lose sight of the greatest challenge of our time: Preserving the freedom and security of this nation against determined enemies,” the vice president said in prepared remarks.
With two months remaining in a close election, and the pool of undecided voters a small one, Republicans relished the opportunity to place a Democrat out front at their convention. They had their man in Miller, a conservative ex-Marine who minces no words and delivered a keynote address a dozen years ago in the same hall in service of Democrat Bill Clinton.
Bush campaigned in Ohio _ the ultimate battleground state _ as he made his way toward a convention city that simmered with dissent.
Police watched warily as demonstrators waving pink slips formed a line three miles long to protest the Bush administration’s economic policies. There were no immediate reports of arrests, one day after police took into custody more than 1,000 demonstrators who had threatened to march on the convention hall.
A small group of AIDS activists managed to penetrate Madison Square Garden itself, although the convention was not in session at the time. They blew whistles and chanted, “Bush kills,” at a morning session of GOP youth before being hustled from the floor.
The script called for delegates to formally bestow their vice presidential nomination on Cheney, 63, a powerful second-in-command in Bush’s conservative administration.
“Moments come along in history when leaders must make fundamental decisions about how to confront a long-term challenge and how best to keep the American people secure,” the vice president said in remarks prepared for his own turn at the podium.
“And on the question of America’s role in the world, the differences between Sen. (John) Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest.”
Kerry ended a brief stint on the campaign sidelines, defying tradition by making an appearance while his rival’s national convention was in progress.
“Extremism has gained momentum” as a result of administration missteps in Iraq, the Democratic presidential candidate told a national convention of the American Legion, but added the war on terror is a winnable one with the right policies in place.
“When it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently, I would have done almost everything differently” than the president, Kerry said.
“Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter,” Miller said in his excerpts prepared for GOP loyalists. “But not today. Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today’s Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.”
Miller said “it is not their patriotism, it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking,” but that scarcely tempered his attack on Kerry.
“Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric. Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are,” he said. “How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.”
His remark about fighting the last war was a clear reference to Vietnam. Kerry volunteered to serve there, won five combat medals and has made his military record a cornerstone of his campaign to defeat a sitting president in wartime.
The four-term Massachusetts senator has devoted far less time to stressing his prominence as a veteran who turned against the war when he returned home, though, and Bush’s chief political strategist said during the day that those actions tarnished “the records and service” of others who served.
“It was a period of intense feeling on both sides for and against the war, but I think that was painting with far too broad a brush to tarnish the records and service of people who were defending our country and fighting communism and doing what they thought was right,” Karl Rove said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Rove said Bush’s rival “served with valor” in Vietnam, and he denied any connection with Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, a Republican-financed organization that has used television ads to make largely unsubstantiated claims that Kerry lied about his military record.
Democrats responded quickly, pointing out that both Rove and Cheney received deferments during the war and did not serve in the military. “Who in the hell is Karl Rove talking about John Kerry’s war record?” asked retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak in support of Bush’s challenger.
The president’s nationally televised acceptance speech Thursday marks the end of the year’s convention season and the unofficial start of the general election campaign.
The Bush-Cheney campaign went to federal court to force an end to political ads by outside groups relying on large donations. Groups working for Kerry’s victory have spent an estimated $63 million or more on such commercials this campaign. Organizations seeking Bush’s re-election have launched a hurry-up effort to catch up in the campaign’s final two months.
