The ABC's of a Successful GOP Convention
by Quin Hillyer

Make this the JED convention: Judges, Energy, and Defense. Or maybe call it the CCC convention: Courts, Cars and Cannons. Or maybe just forget the acronyms; the important thing is that the Republican National Convention focus on issues that motivate the conservative base while also, if packaged correctly and truthfully, attracting swing voters. Given the mixed record of the Bush administration (especially on fiscal issues), the number of those issues isn't great. But for conservatives as well as a broad swath of non-ideological "middle America," President George W. Bush should be seen as far, far better than U.S. Sen. John Kerry on matters of justice, fuel and military readiness.

Before exploring this further, let me be clear that I think the president himself has another job to do in his convention speech. His job is to re-cast the two big issues, war and the economy. (To read more, see this link: http://www.al.com/opinion/mobileregister/qhillyer.ssf?/base/opinion/1092217684169880.xml.) Only Mr. Bush can answer the major questions the American people are asking about his leadership.

But while the president answers the two big questions, Vice President Dick Cheney and other speakers should hammer home the importance of judges, energy and defense.

On judges, there would be no talk of a constitutional amendment banning homosexual "marriage" if judges didn't try to force states to create a "right" to such arrangements out of thin air. There would be no continuing threat to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance if reasonable judges sat on the bench. With good judges, laws against partial-birth abortions wouldn't be overruled. Nor would racial preferences be enshrined in academia for another 20 years. Nor would criminals go free on newly discovered technicalities.

And if John Kerry were president, not only would there be no Miguel Estradas and Bill Pryors for the Democrats to unjustly block through abuses of Senate rules, but there would indeed be more Lani Guiniers and Janet Renos and Ninth Circuit nincompoops overseeing the legal system of this country.

It's not just conservative activists who care about such issues; it's "Reagan Democrats" and Main Street moms. And, to the extent that courts impose burdensome requirements on businesses, it's also the Rotarians and the Ross Perot brigades who are apt to listen to a well-delivered message on the importance of judges.

Then there's energy. Fuel costs are one of the biggest "kitchen counter" issues at play in this whole election. People are angry about prices at the pump, angry about high electric bills, worried about energy blackouts, and unsure if they can afford to plan trips to visit extended families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And Republicans can, and should, lay a great deal of the blame at the feet of congressional Democrats who for three years have blocked a major energy bill.

To protect a small patch of land for caribou that don't even need protecting, the Democrats have blocked energy production that could cut costs at the pump. When gasoline costs $2 a gallon, people tend to care less about the flora and fauna of a tiny sliver of Alaska hard by the Arctic Circle.

Again, the message is simple: Republicans warned about a coming energy crunch; The Democrats filibustered against a solution.

Finally, there's defense. There just is no way that John Kerry should be able to get away with his Democratic National Convention charade of being a strong and tough-minded supporter of the military. Hammer home how many weapons systems he has voted to kill. Inform the public about his moves to strip intelligence funding, and about his pathetic attendance at intelligence briefings.

Remind the public that the "peace dividend" that helped the economy in the 1990s could only come about because of the strong defenses of the 1980s -- defenses that, again and again and again, John Kerry voted against even while a fully armed and hostile Soviet Union aimed thousands of tons of nuclear missiles at us.

John Kerry didn't support our military then, and he didn't support it last year when we needed $87 billion for our troops in Iraq -- so why should we believe he'll support our military in the future?

If there's one thing we know about George Bush and Dick Cheney, on the other hand, it's that they support a strong defense establishment.

The question here isn't the wisdom of the war in Iraq; the question is a demonstrated, long-term commitment to support our troops and protect our shores. In the tradition of Scoop Jackson and Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy and George H.W. Bush, we must always be strong so we can always be free.

That's a message that will resonate throughout the former "Rust Belt" as well as it does in Dixie. It's a message that will appeal to high-tech workers in defense-related fields in the Pacific Northwest, just as it will in places as far-flung as New Jersey and San Diego.

It's a message that Republicans win on, and that Democrats since 1972 have always lost on -- and deservedly so. And it's a message that should have special salience in these post-9/11 United States.

So there you have it, three broad issues on which the only way Republican can lose is if they don't play the game. JED. CCC. However the Republicans package them, these issues will sell. And the Reagan Coalition can coalesce again.

Quin Hillyer is an editorial writer and columnist for the Mobile Register, and a longtime conservative activist and staffer who served at three GOP conventions before his 25th birthday -- once as a page, once as a youth delegate, and once as an alternate delegate.