Republicans cast Bush in Churchill's image

Republicans marshalled their forces to bolster President George Bush’s image as a strong leader in treacherous times as they open their national convention in the city that felt the brunt of the worst terrorist attacks in US history.

The Republican National Convention was convening in New York today, a day after more than 100,000 people protesting Bush’s Iraq and domestic policies swarmed past Madison Square Garden, where the president will accept the party’s nomination for a second term on Thursday.

“He has not wavered, he has not flinched from the hard choices,” Senator John McCain said of his former 2000 Republican party rival.

The convention opens with polls showing Bush and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, in a virtual tie.

The opening day was intended to focus on Bush’s leadership in the war on terrorism, with a tribute to families of the September 11, 2001, attacks and speeches by McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

“In choosing a president, we really don’t choose a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or liberal,” Giuliani said in remarks that compared Bush with Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill. “We choose a leader. And in times of danger, as we are now in, Americans should put leadership at the core of their decision.”

But a far different message was delivered yesterday on the streets of Manhattan by protesters who filled 20 city blocks, many chanting “No More Bush” and “No More Years” and bearing anti-war and anti-Bush banners. Some carried flag-draped, coffin-shaped boxes meant to draw attention to a US death toll in the Iraq war that is approaching 1,000.

Police gave no official crowd estimate. One official put the size at over 120,000, although it took nearly five hours for the procession to pass Madison Square Garden. Organisers put the number at some 400,000. In all, about 100 arrests were reported, with no major outbursts of violence.

Republicans were gathering about four miles north of Ground Zero, where two hijacked planes destroyed both towers of the World Trade Centre on September 11. Nearly 3,000 people died there, at the Pentagon and at a crash site in Pennsylvania.

Bush and his supporters were expected to use the convention – the first for the Republicans in this Democratic stronghold – to lay out a second-term agenda that reaches out to moderate Democrats and independent voters.

In fact, most of the prominent speakers – Giuliani, McCain and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who speaks tomorrow – are far more politically moderate on social issues than most convention delegates.

Republicans, encouraged by recent polls that show Kerry losing some ground to Bush in areas such as leadership and national security, pressed their months long efforts to portray him as weak on national defence and as a waffler.

Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards, sought to counter the Republican efforts to portray Bush as a strong leader. “We have seen what this administration’s approach does to our standing in the world. It isolates us. It costs us respect from our allies. It means we must face these new challenges alone,” Edwards said.

In an interview with Time magazine, Bush suggested he had underestimated the struggle in post-war Iraq. Bush called the swift military offensive that led to the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 “a catastrophic success” since fighting continues to this day despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government.

Bush arrives in New York on Wednesday after a tour of eight battleground states. He will spend one night in the city before returning to the campaign trail.