The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening from the First Union Center in Philadelphia. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour this third night of the Republican National Convention: An extended interview with Republican Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney; Terry Smith reports on the new heat over Democratic attacks on Cheney and Bush; Margaret Warner explores the politics of that political combat; Ray Suarez talks about the role of the Vice President with Haynes Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and Kay James; Kwame Holman looks at the Republicans' new drive to attract minorities; and Mark Shields and Paul Gigot with Gwen Ifill set the convention stage for tonight. Once again, we'll have the non- convention news at the end of the program tonight.

JIM LEHRER: George W. Bush arrived in Philadelphia to claim the Republican Presidential nomination. He and his wife, Laura, were greeted by cheering supporters as they stepped off their campaign plane just outside the city. Later, Bush addressed a Republican Party luncheon.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: I want to say what an honor it is to be the nominee of the Republican Party. I want to tell you how hopeful I am about this country and what we stand for. And I want to say one more time, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. If all goes well, if all goes well, you are looking at the next President of the United States. God bless.

JIM LEHRER: Bush will formally clinch the nomination tonight as the rolling roll call of the states continues. Late this afternoon, he inspected the convention center in the traditional walk-through by the candidate. He'll give his acceptance speech there tomorrow night. Former President Gerald Ford was hospitalized today in Philadelphia. Doctors said he suffered two small strokes. Kwame Holman has more.

SPOKESPERSON: Ladies and gentlemen, the President and Mr. Gerald Ford.

KWAME HOLMAN: Mr. Ford was in the midst of a Philadelphia convention event in his honor last night when he complained of feeling uncomfortable. He was taken to Hahnemann university hospital. The 87-year-old former President was released in less than an hour after doctors diagnosed a sinus infection and gave him antibiotics. But this morning, President Ford returned to the hospital and was admitted. One of his doctors said Mr. Ford probably had suffered a second stroke, the first being a little stroke a day or so ago. The doctor spoke to reporters this morning and said there didn't appear to be any brain damage.

DR. ROBERT SCHWARTZMAN, Hahnemann University Hospital Spokesman: He's perfectly awake, he's normal function mentally, that's not a problem. He has a problem with his balance and a little weakness in the left arm.

REPORTER: And his legs as well?

DR. ROBERT SCHWARTZMAN: No, legs are normal. .

REPORTER: How is Mrs. Ford?

DR. ROBERT SCHWARTZMAN: She's very upset, but fine.

KWAME HOLMAN: Dr. Schwartzman said President Ford would remain in the hospital for five or six days.

JIM LEHRER: Later in the day, the doctor said Ford was improving. They said he had been undergoing testing throughout the day, and he told them he feels great. The protests continued in Philadelphia today, but they were relatively peaceful. Activists rallied at a downtown arena where Governor Bush had spoken earlier. They challenged his record on Latino issues. On Tuesday, demonstrators attacked police cars and fought with officers. Police arrested 350 people. This will be Dick Cheney night at the convention. He will be nominated for Vice President by acclamation, and then accept that nomination in an address to the convention. I spoke with Cheney earlier today about his new, very visible life as George W. Bush's running mate.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, welcome.

DICK CHENEY: It's good to be back.

JIM LEHRER: So, how's it going after nine days in this big media public limelight? How are you holding up?

DICK CHENEY: Well, pretty well so far, I think. It's been fascinating. Of course, it'snot new in the sense that I've been around it before. I'd worked for Presidents, been involved in national campaigns and so forth, but it's still different to be the guy right smack in the middle of the bubble - so to speak. And it's been a tremendous experience - the opportunity to get involved in a national campaign, to be a candidate yourself. I've given a lot of advice over the years. Now I have to think back on that and reflect on whether it was good advice or not.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think of this commentary - I'm sure you read about it - that you seem uncomfortable, you know, in all this kind of hoopla atmosphere and smiling - having to smile all the time and rock 'em, sock 'em politics - is that right -- are you uncomfortable at all?

DICK CHENEY: Not uncomfortable, I don't think. I'm basically a soft-spoken man of few words; that's my heritage. That's the way I was brought up in the West, and not somebody who's a giver of stirring, thump-thumping political speeches; that's not my stock and trade. So I watch it all with some interest, and, of course, the commentary has been all over the lot. The big laugh in the family, Jim, has been comparison - some female commentator made the other night when she said I had the sex appeal of cold French fries. (laughter) That was sort of the peak.

JIM LEHRER: We'll leave that one alone. Okay. Did I read it correctly, it seemed to me when - right at the beginning - when you were attacked and questioned about your voting record in the House of Representatives, first, you were surprised about it. Then you got hot about it; you got annoyed. Did I read that correctly?

DICK CHENEY: I don't know that I'm surprised by it. I think we've seen and would expect that sort of thing - a national campaign - and that's sort of been the standard way the Gore operation has run. In terms of being hot under the collar, no, not really. I mean, the fact of the matter is it's my record - I voted as I voted probably a couple of thousand times over the course of ten years. I think you have to go back and look at the context, look at the times, and make sure you understand the vote. And I think obviously if somebody distorts the record or tries to take something out of context, there's sort of a natural combative reaction that sets in, but I think it's probably, from my standpoint, it's important to get those juices flowing anyway.

JIM LEHRER: But you don't - you're not suggesting that it's not relevant, how -

DICK CHENEY: I'm suggesting that - I won't say that it's not relevant, obviously. It's my record, and I'm proud of it. On the other hand, I think it's not - it's not what the campaign is going to be all about. The campaign is really about the 21st century. It's about what comes next. And I don't think the Democrats, frankly, have made much progress focusing on my votes of 20 years ago as a way to engage in that debate.

JIM LEHRER: We're not going through all that again. You've been through that many times. Let's make sure that we have some overview here. Let's say that, you know, the spectrum of the Republican Party then, when you were casting those votes, is it fair to say that whether it's a vote on Head Start or whether it's a vote on the Education Department, whatever, pro-life, whatever, that gun control, that you were in the far right edge of this - in the opinion spectrum of the party then?

DICK CHENEY: Far right - you know, that's a value - I'm a conservative Republican and I believe in limited government. I believe in the constitutional right to bear arms and a strong national defense. We were faced in those days with big budget deficits, so I often voted against what might have otherwise been a worthy program simply on the grounds that we didn't have enough money to afford everything and you had to make choices, and I was prepared to make those choices. But certainly those were my views then and, you know, I make no apology for them.

JIM LEHRER: All right, now, where are you now? In terms of the spectrum of the party, there's - you know, the party is the big umbrella. That's the big message. You've got people - if you're from the very right or even if you're to the left, if you're Republican, you're welcome. Where are you personally in that spectrum now of the present party?

DICK CHENEY: Well, then you've got to go back and say, well, where is the spectrum? I think more of it in terms of I don't try to define myself in terms of where I fall within the party. I think of it more in terms of, you know, what are the national issues today, how have things changed, have they changed? And clearly they have; we don't have the Cold War anymore. The Soviet Union imploded ten years ago. We've got a different set of military and defense needs and requirements today. We've got a budget surplus today. One of the reasons we have a budget surplus today is because we have been able to cut back on military spending from those Cold War levels, and we can afford programs today that we couldn't afford ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, because we do have that surplus. We get to make choices now that we couldn't make then. The surplus, in part, is a direct result of a strong vibrant nature of our economy and tremendous developments in technology and the information revolution and so forth. So it's a different era, a different time. I still am a skeptic, I suppose, oftentimes about government programs. I'll never get over that. But I certainly am more prepared today to support spending on various programs -- as long as it's within the overall confines of what we can afford - than I was ten or fifteen years ago.

JIM LEHRER: Then you or George W. Bush or anybody here in Philadelphia or anywhere else speaks of - as everybody is - the new Republican Party. Define it. What is it?

DICK CHENEY: Well, it's a party that I think the governor's really began to shape in Texas - is as good a place to go as any to look at it. I would say one of the prime issues this year is going to be education and that we've seen very positive results in Texas as a result of his activities down there. It's probably got a heavier dose of domestic policy, if you will, than what we focused on as much when I was in the Congress fifteen or twenty years ago back in the 80s when we were faced with the specter of the possibility of all-out global nuclear war with the Soviet Union. So that emphasis has shifted, but it's very much as the governor's defined it too - focused on this notion that we are in a time of unparalleled prosperity; we've seen enormous economic growth and development in the country. And, yet, there still are people left behind that we have not - because of partly the failures of our educational system - been able to bring in, bring along, if you will, to the party as many people as we'd like to, that we find ourselves going outside, encouraging immigration to come into the United States, which we're not opposed to -- but encourage them to come in to take jobs it would be nice if American kids could be trained for.

JIM LEHRER: But the Republican Party position used to be - correct me if I'm wrong - was essentially federal government butt out of both public education - that is the job of the states and of the local communities - but the new Republican Party says the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the federal government can make a difference, right?

DICK CHENEY: It does, but always with a proviso - and I've heard the governor use this statement now many times on the stump - that he's not running to be the federal superintendent of instruction; that's still essentially a state and a local responsibility. Most of the funds are still going to be generated at the state and local level. And we want control at the state and local level, but, to the extent that the federal government does spend money on education, we want accountability; we haven't had that in the past. He's made it clear with his proposal, for example, with Title I funds that are spent by the federal government for disadvantaged students in those schools that have special populations like that if they don't get results, that ultimately the funds ought to be given to the parents to find other alternative means of educating their kids. That's a very revolutionary proposal, but what it means is a greater degree of performance and accountability on -

JIM LEHRER: And you're comfortable with that?

DICK CHENEY: I'm comfortable with that. He's also advocated some improvements, for example, in Head Start, that we spend more money on Head Start, aimed specifically at providing academic content for Head Start, math and reading, that we haven't done in the past. So and, again, if you look at all of our priorities out there, you'll see the fact that we do have a surplus; we can do several things. We can cut taxes, and that's a key part of the program. We can spend more on education; we can address the need to reform and preserve our Social Security and our Medicare systems. Now those are things you can think about and seriously contemplate because we do, in fact, have large surpluses that we didn't have ten years ago.

JIM LEHRER: So if somebody says, hey, wait a minute, Cheney voted against Head Start, he voted against setting up the Education Department, now he's on the other side, that is the result of what?

DICK CHENEY: Well, I think you have to look at context. I'm - I did vote against the creation of the Department of Education; I did vote against Head Start back in the 80s; I also voted for it at one point when Al Gore voted against it. But the - I think the important thing to keep in mind as well too is that we have learned a lot about what works in education. We do know that the system today, the public school system today still leaves a lot to be desired. I grew up in a small town in Wyoming. I was educated in a public school system in the 1950s; I got a fantastic education - much harder to do today because the schools need reform. And we're prepared to commit the resources to see that that happens, but at the same time insisting on accountability. This isn't just a check writing exercise where you send money out to a bureaucracy that doesn't work. We've got - you've got to reform the system as well.

JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about affirmative action?

DICK CHENEY: Well, I've just had mixed feelings on it over the years. I think in some cases it has produced positive results. I like what's happened in Texas, though, where we've seen, for example, in the institutions of higher learning, where we've gotten away from the notion of special access, if you will, for minorities and rather focused on the fact that we'll take the top 10 percent from any school and guarantee them an educationin Texas institutions of higher learning. It achieves the same result. It does, in fact, get access for a very large number of students from the minority population into those systems without operating in a way that discriminates against individuals. One of the problems, of course, with affirmative action in the past has been sometimes it's had the effect of discriminating against the others who were non-minorities, even though they had the same test scores or better test scores; they would be excluded - somebody who had less capabilities would be allowed in. So it's been a problem obviously in the past in terms of how to administer it fairly. I do think that we've - we've probably achieved significant results with affirmative action in many areas. I know my friend, Colin Powell, is a big advocate of affirmative action.

JIM LEHRER: Do you have any problems with what he said about it the other night or -

DICK CHENEY: No. I think - I don't think there's any man in America who is better qualified to stand up in front of a major party convention as General Powell did and to say the things he did. I think he's demonstrated, as a result of all of his years of public service and his time in the military, that he is a man of deep conviction and that we Republicans need to be reminded of what our obligations are as a national party.

JIM LEHRER: After that - after his speech - he sat down with Gwen Ifill for our program, and he essentially said that the Republican Party has to do more than just cheer in when he speaks; they've got to go out and - and not have litmus tests on affirmative action, even on pro-choice, that - do you agree with that? Are there certain things that are - that should be requiring somebody to say they're Republican and there's affirmative action pro-choice - what list would you make or give to say, hey, if you're going to be a Republican, you've got to believe this, this, this, this?

DICK CHENEY: Well, I wouldn't put together a list like that, first of all. I think there's got to be room in the party for people with a wide variety of views on the difficult, tough issues of the day, whether we're talking about affirmative action, or we're talking about the life questions or national security or tax policy, or whatever it might be. I think there has to be room within the Republican Party for a broad range of views. We're not looking for some kind of litmus test that has to be imposed. I do think generally the party ought to appeal on the basis of a broad policy, that we believe in opportunity for individuals, that we do believe that the greatness of our society resides in our individuals and in our communities, not in a central government, that a central government that is too powerful is, in fact, a threat to our freedom, and, so, therefore, we have to be cautious and careful about how much authority we vest in the central government. Those kinds of concepts and broad principles, I think, have been the hallmark, if you will, of the Republican Party over the years, equality of opportunity, and we need to focus on those issues.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think Governor Bush was right to stick the word "compassionate" in front of conservative?

DICK CHENEY: I do.

JIM LEHRER: Was it necessary?

DICK CHENEY: Well, I think he obviously has won the right, if you will, by virtue of his success in the primary and organizing a national campaign and now about to become a candidate for President of the United States to articulate his beliefs, to lay out an agenda to help shape the philosophy of the party, and I think the phrase "compassionate conservative" goes a very long way to explaining what he's all about.

JIM LEHRER: And does it explain what you're about too? Do you believe that conservatism needed this reinforcement - say, hey, wait a minute, we're compassionate too?

DICK CHENEY: I think it's been a very positive development. You know, one of the difficult things that you've got to deal with, if you're going to put together a national coalition, you've got to find some way to encapsulate, if you will, a belief, set of beliefs, a set of attitudes and philosophy about what you want to do as a governing coalition, and there has to be a broad enough definition that covers those principles so that you can put together a majority. And what we've got within the Republican Party today, I think, is a governing majority for the nation. The task of political leadership in that kind of a setting is, in fact, articulate a philosophy, articulate a vision for the country, and get people to sign on board to support it; he's done that very successfully.

JIM LEHRER: What is your reaction to President Clinton's attacks on Governor Bush?

DICK CHENEY: I hope he keeps it up.

JIM LEHRER: You do?

DICK CHENEY: I really think they'll watch it operate. It looks to me like a man who is fearful that his time on the stage is about over and he's having difficulty coming to grips with that, and he's still engaged - wants to engage, if you will, in the kind of political partisanship that he sometimes has been part of in the past, and he simply can't let go. I would guess -- I'm just speculating - but that the Gore camp's not all that happy to have Bill Clinton out there every day mixing it up.

JIM LEHRER: But from your point of view, more the merrier?

DICK CHENEY: Well, we're going to run a positive campaign; we're going to run about the future; but every time Bill Clinton goes out and attacks us, and he's attacked me this week too, it's just a reminder to everybody of the problems, I think, that we've had during the Clinton-Gore years, and we'll let them, you know, spend all day if they want on that.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, on that issue, on that question, there has been no Clinton bashing, end quote, at this convention up till now, and some of the folks in the hall are asking - was that a concerted decision, a clean decision, hey, let's don't do that?

DICK CHENEY: I think it was - it's been a very conscious decision to make certain that we keep focused on sort of the positive message that we want to deliver and try to run a positive campaign. If you go back and look at Governor Bush's first run for governor of Texas, remember that he ran against Ann Richards, Ann Richards, who was famous for her comments about President Bush being born with nothing but a silver foot in his mouth, as I recall; Ann's a tough campaigner, no question about it. But, in the end, she failed in defending her record and running for reelection in Texas because Governor Bush, George Bush treated her as a gentleman and focused on issues and substantive matters and didn't get down into the gutter, so to speak, of taking cheap shots at the competition. We want to emphasize that we want to change the tone in Washington; we'd like to be able to do in Washington what he's done in Austin. In Austin, he's put together a governing coalition that includes not only everybody in the Republican Party but a lot of Democrats as well. And he ended up being endorsed by the senior Democrat in the state for reelection, Bob Bullock, the lieutenant governor. I don't know that we're ever going to get the Democratic leader in theHouse of Representatives, for example, to endorse George W. Bush for the election, but we can go a long way we think to change the tone and restore a degree of civility and improve, if you will, the prospects for governing in the nation's capital.

JIM LEHRER: I said finally - one more finally - your expertise, of course, you have many expertises, but most particularly defense and foreign affairs areas - are you satisfied that George W. Bush has the expertise, the experience, and the judgment to be commander in chief?

DICK CHENEY: Oh, I think so, Jim. My experience has been that no one individual can be everything in an administration. You put together a team, and that you need a team that's got military expertise and has got diplomatic expertise and has got economic expertise in it, and I think what he's done and what I've seen him do in connection with a campaign is to assemble a group of very experienced advisers. I've been involved in the effort; George Schulz has been involved in the effort. I come out of the Ford-Bush administrations; George Schulz came out of the Reagan administration. Then people like Larry Lindsey and Wolfowitz and Condi Rice and folks who've got a broad range of experience and I think those are the people he would draw upon when it was time to govern. That's exactly as it should be. I think he's been a very good judge of people; and he's great to work with in this regard because he's a quick study. He's not afraid to ask questions, and I think he'll be very, very effective as commander in chief.

JIM LEHRER: And the voters should have no concern about this?

DICK CHENEY: No. I think - there are legitimate questions to ask. You've got to watch to see how a candidate operates and what his beliefs are and what kinds of people he bring around him, how he talks about the issues, but I think - I think he'd be very effective as President.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

DICK CHENEY: Thank you, Jim.

FOCUS - FIGHTING WORDS

JIM LEHRER: Now, the heightened political combat outside the convention about Cheney's record and other matters. Media Correspondent Terence Smith begins.

SPOKESPERSON: With George Bush and Dick Cheney at the helm, you can count on America.

SPOKESMAN: Viva Bush!

COLIN POWELL: We can't leave any child behind.

TERENCE SMITH: The Republicans are all singing from the same hymn book this week. It is a carefully choreographed effort to remain upbeat and on message. But the Democrats are doing their best rain on the Republican's positive parade.

SPOKESPERSON: I mean, I stand here proudly to contrast the record of Al Gore with that of George Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney.

TERENCE SMITH: There is no cease-fire during this week of Republican celebration. The Democrats have been ferrying their 27-member truth squad and journalists to and from the convention hall aboard a bus they have christened the Rolling Donkey. Seven Democratic websites are devoted to parsing the Bush record. And the Democratic National Committee has spent $3.5 million to run three ads in 17 battleground states. The commercials also got free media coverage when broadcast replayed them in news pieces.

DNC AD SPOKESMAN: Houston is now the smart capital of the U.S. Get the facts.

DNC AD SPOKESMAN: Tonight in Philadelphia, you'll hear a lot about the leave nothing child behind. Meanwhile, back in Texas, George W. Bush opposed health coverage for 200,000 more children.

TERENCE SMITH: Citing what they described as an unwritten rule against attack ads during the opposing party's convention week, Republicans are crying foul. Media consultant Alex Castilanos worked on Republican Presidential ads since 1988.

ALEX CASTELLANOS, GOP Media Consultant: Al Gore is trying to sling mud at the front door just as you show up for the first date. I think it shows something about their campaign and our campaign.

TERENCE SMITH: But Democratic officials challenged the existence of any such rule and argued that it was, in any event, violated by this ad that the Republicans ran during the 1996 Democratic Convention.

1996 RNC AD SPOKESPERSON: Bill Clinton said he'd lead the war on drugs and change

America. All he did was change his mind.

TERENCE SMITH: National DNC Chair Joe Andrew says there's no cease- fire on holding the opposition accountable.

JOE ANDREW, National Chair, DNC: There are a series of ads to make sure that the people know that the show that is going on at this convention is nearly an illusion.

TERENCE SMITH: But Kathleen Hall Jamison, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, is skeptical about the effectiveness of the ads.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, Dean, Annenberg, School for Communication: The question is, will this advertising be viewed as the skunk at the party since the Republicans are running a very positive promotion for Bush at the convention -

TERENCE SMITH: Meanwhile, George W. Bush has taken on the Democrats.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: They don't want four more years of Clinton/Gore. They want somebody to appeal to our better angels, not our darker impulses.

TERENCE SMITH: Ever since he arrived in Philadelphia, the conservative voting record of Dick Cheney provided a fresh target for Democratic ads.

DNC AD SPOKESMAN: George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney to help lead the Republican Party. What does Cheney's record say about their plans? Cheney was one of the members of Congress to oppose the Clean Water Act -- one of the few to vote against Head Start.

TERENCE SMITH: Even President Clinton joined the chorus of criticism.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All the big publicity is about in the last few days, amazing vote cast by their nominee for Vice President when he was in congress against letting Nelson Mandela out of jail. And that takes your breath away. But Mr. Mandela got out of jail in spite of that congressional vote.

TERENCE SMITH: The Democratic assault has forced Cheney to spend valuable television time defending his record.

DICK CHENEY: You can't go through and look at every single vote, and I'm perfectly happy to defend my record.

TERENCE SMITH: In the spirit of campaign tit for tat, Republican ad makers reportedly are preparing their own attack ads against the Democrats for use when the party convenes its convention in Los Angeles the week after next.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, three views on how Cheney's nomination-- and the war of words and ads-- will play in critical electoral vote states. Alan Novak is Republican state chairman in Pennsylvania. Don Benton is Republican state chairman in Washington State, where he is also a state senator. And John Zogby is an independent pollster. Well, now both of you are state party chairman in states where these ads are running. Alan Novak, do you think these attacks on Bush and Cheney will have any impact on the independent voters, the swing voters that are key to this election?

ALAN NOVAK, Republican State Chairman, Pennsylvania: I don't believe they will, Margaret. And evidence from what we're able to find out since they have begun to run indicates they are not. George W. Bush is running very well in Pennsylvania and after Dick Cheney was named as his running mate, the Democrats came right away with the sound bites on Dick Cheney's voting record and the numbers jumped in favor of Bush.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think the same thing, and if so why? Why would voters who do not agree with Dick Cheney on some of these issues not care?

DON BENTON, Republican State Chairman, Washington: Well, I think it is pretty clear, in Washington State, if you go to one ad on the Clean Water Act, people look at Dick Cheney as a visionary for being one of the few people to vote against it because a lot of the farmers in Washington State actually have to make sure the water that leaves their farms is cleaner than the water that came in. And so maybe he was a visionary in voting against that because it did not contain a human element. And I think that's important. Property rights in Washington State which are affected greatly by the clean water act have really gone a long way to bring a lot of the Democrats and middle of the road independents that used to vote Democrat over to the Republican side. So really I think some of these ads may help George Bush in Washington State. We just had a poll, just out of the field, and John will be interested in this. In Seattle, no less, just last week, it shows Bush up in the eighth congressional district in Seattle by ten points. We're pretty encouraged by George W. Bush's lead in Washington State and we really don't think these ads will have a great effect.

MARGARET WARNER: So one, do you think what they are finding, would you think, is this plausible to you? And two, why do you think the Democrats are doing this.

JOHN ZOGBY, Pollster: The Democrats are doing it because they have to do something. And do one of two things. One is to bolster the positive or favorability rating of Al Gore and make him more likeable. But at the same time, what they also have to do is knock down George W. Bush a few pegs. The problem is, Bush's personality leading with heart is building up his likeability so high that we learned with Ronald Reagan, you can't attack somebody who is liked by the American people. Instead they go after Cheney. But the difficulty is that, and we learned with this with Dan Quayle, don't amount to a hill of beans what Americans think about the vice presidential nominee. And so, Al Gore is in a box at the moment.

MARGARET WARNER: So even though we see Democrats saying what we're really trying to do is sort of tie Cheney's voting record around Bush's neck and say George W. Bush is really not as pragmatic and moderate as you think he is; you just think that doesn't fly?

JOHN ZOGBY: It isn't so far. We polled at the end of the first week after a lot of the Cheney negatives were aired, and what we found was actually no change from the previous poll. George W. Bush still led by four. Now, that's not a big lead, but the problem is, Al Gore is stuck in the high 30s and low 40S. You can't win the presidency with those kind of numbers. What the Democrats instead really have to do is move those numbers up by going positive first.

MARGARET WARNER: You were trying to get in here.

ALAN NOVAK: Well, the one thing that I wanted to say is, Cheney's voting record is yesterday's news when the voters are focusing on today's news. And George W. Bush's vision is carrying this along. Cheney in the perspective of Pennsylvania, and I live in a moderate wealthy county, people like the experience and integrity Cheney brings to the Bush ticket.

MARGARET WARNER: You agree, both seem to agree with what Dick Cheney said to Jim, hedoesn't think this is what people are going to be interested in this campaign, period.

DON BENTON: I think that's the key. In Washington, people -- we have a lot of independent voters in Washington State. And what they tend to do is rather than issues, they tend to vote for the character of the person. You know, he may come out on an issue opposed to where you are at. But if it is someone that you believe, and that you can trust, and when they tell you something you know that they really mean it, which is a man like Dick Cheney, that goes a lot farther than being right or wrong on any one particular issue. And I think he has a very good reputation as being a man of high character and high integrity, and that will carry him well in Washington State.

JOHN ZOGBY: Margaret, there is another factor here as well. Voters typically ask two questions. What has he done for me lately? And what are you going to do for me next? They don't care very much about what you did during the 1980s. That's ancient history.

MARGARET WARNER: How much do you think, how do you think Cheney's personality comes into play also? We just saw it on display in this interview with Jim.

JOHN ZOGBY: He's disarming, and at the same time he's a bit of a maverick. He's the anti-politician politician. And voters kind of like that. There is no rah rah here. This is a steady hand of experience. This is a scoutmaster with the nice boy scout, or if you want to be -

MARGARET WARNER: Cheney being the scoutmaster.

JOHN ZOGBY: Cheney being the scoutmaster. And if you want to look at it in very positive terms, this is the perfect supplement to George W. Bush, someone who has been around the park and someone who says I'm not going to do the political thing the way it is normally done. Like me or don't like me. Vote for me anyway.

ALAN NOVAK: One thing that I would like to add, to the extent that there was a John McCain phenomena that we saw earlier in the year, it was independent voters that did not like negative campaigning. If this battle is all about trying to get independent voters, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are going to get them by staying positive with the vision.

MARGARET WARNER: As Cheney said, it was a conscious decision, obviously, not to do any Clinton bashing here, believing that the voters really don't like that. Isn't it sometimes risky though?

DON BENTON: Well, it is risky, but really if you think about conventions and what are they about, they are about articulating the policy and the idea and vision for the future. They are not about the past. And I think we have done a good job here in Philadelphia this week and the Bush campaign has done a good job of articulating the positions of the party and his vision for the future, rather than dwelling on the failures of the Clinton/Gore admission. And I think that's going to carry this party a long way forward by doing it that way.

MARGARET WARNER: So, John Zogby, what happened to the conventional political wisdom, which is that a charge unanswered is a charge that sticks?

JOHN ZOGBY: Well, I think basically if you go back to 1988, that's the classic example. Dukakis never really built up his likeability, therefore it was easy to knock him down. But America likes George W. Bush. They seem to like what they see. And at the same time, they don't like Al Gore very much. The Democrats really run a risk, and that risk is, role reversal. In the early and mid 1990s, the Republicans were the exclusive, small tent, mean party. And the Democrats were all inclusive with a projection of building a bridge to the21st century. Now, what you have is the Republicans showcasing inclusivity and the Democrats led by the President of the United States, perhaps very unbecoming, becoming the politics of mean. That could be very risky for them.

ALAN NOVAK: That's interesting, considering the sense that we have that people just want an end to Clinton. And this may make it even a big, a quicker exit.

MARGARET WARNER: From the attacks.

ALAN NOVAK: Oh, sure. The attacks add one more nasty element to a Clinton era.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, I'm sorry, gentlemen, I have to leave it there but thank you all three very much for joining us.

FOCUS - PERSPECTIVES

JIM LEHRER: On Dick Cheney night at the convention: Some perspectives on Vice Presidents, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: We get that longer look at the Vice Presidency from NewsHour regulars, Presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Bechloss; journalist and author Haynes Johnson, and joined this week by Kay James, a Bush delegate from Virginia and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. It is Dick Cheney's night. But I keep reading this conventional wisdom that Vice Presidents don't matter that much anymore. What does history say?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: You know what I think -- I think the public perception of the impotence of the Vice President's role is way out of whack with the reality the institution developed in last 25 years. We've spent so much time talking an a party lady, not just Hillary but party ladies this potential power is so much greater. I think the reason that we are messed up about it is there are colorful sayings from the past about Daniel Webster says, well, I don't propose to be buried before I die. You know, or that there's comments that somehow even George Bush said that one time all he did was go to funerals. You die and I fly. So all of these things come through. We all say them over and over again. In fact, as Haynes and I were talking about, 14 of the 42 Presidents have come from the Vice Presidency, either by death, by assuming it after assassination or by naturally being elected. They become the Presidential nominee almost by choice right now. And the office itself has been given so much more power. It is time we revised our position of this impotent office, which is no longer impotent.

RAY SUAREZ: Okay. What should be the definition?

HAYNES JOHNSON: The definition is, this is the first person that might be the President of the United States. When you are choosing a Vice President, you are choosing someone likely to be the President of the United States. You go back and as Doris said, we had 41 men, count the Presidents, Glover Cleveland counts twice - even though -- you add them up and 41 men were President of the United States. 14 Vice Presidents, that's one third. And recent years, starting with Harry Truman, run down the list. They are either the Vice President succeed to the office, or they become the nominee of their party so that you are dominating the political process in that office. And it is no longer just a functional role, it is a role that, in fact, has great consonance in this age. Also we're an age of terrorism too. The idea of assassination, our Lincoln scholar is here, and can talk about that. But we're no longer in the time when that's an impossible thought. John Kennedy was not an aberration in this sort of thing, so the Vice Presidency counts.

KAY JAMES: I think the American people have seen with their own eyes, you know, just by watching the evening news what can happen to a President of the United States. It is not unlikely that, as you said, a terrorist or someone inside the borders of the United States could take out the life of our President. And so with that, I think Dick Cheney is walking into and stepping into a role the American people understand means that -- it is far more than just a figure head there is a good possibility that one day, he could serve in that capacity -- hopefully, by fulfilling his term and running on his own right.

RAY SUAREZ: He's made into a national figure by this nomination.

KAY JAMES: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: He's made into a national figure, but there's something different about this nomination, and that is that every single Vice President from John Nance Garner in the 1930s all the way up to Al Gore in 2000 has run for President. And so there's the expectation when you nominate a Vice President, as the Republicans are doing tonight, that this Vice President will be next in the line of succession and will be the nominee in some future election. But the fascinating thing is, very few delegates out on that floor tonight, I think, expect that in nominating Dick Cheney, that he will be the Presidential nominee in eight years should a President George W. Bush serve two terms. You have got Cheney, 59, but a very old 59 with some health problems. I think very few people think that they are essentially deciding the Republican line of succession tonight. So the fascinating thing is, in a way, for the first time in a very long time, a convention is leaving that line of succession open.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: You know, the whole John Adams at one point that I'm Vice President, and in this I'm nothing, but I may be everything. And I think what happens nowadays is that almost everybody by rote says I don't want to be Vice President. Look at George Bush Sr. said Sherman cubed, taking his line saying if elected I won't serve, if nominated, I won't run, et cetera, et cetera. But I think almost always when asked, they'll say yes because as Bush said, once they are asked, they know how powerful this potential thing is as they are running for the next possibility which is what they are after from the time they are a little politician mostly.

KAY JAMES: I think with Dick Cheney, you also have factor and he's an extraordinary patriot. And I can't imagine him say nothing to someone who placed a call to him to ask him to serve his country in this way. So whether he has an eye on a higher office or not, if he believes in his heart of hearts that he has the opportunity to serve this nation that way and serve this country, he'll do it. And I don't think he necessarily has in mind that he's doing it as a steppingstone. And a lot of people have a great deal of respect for that kind of decision-making process that he went through.

HAYNES JOHNSON: And the politics of it. It used to be you balanced the ticket. You got someone from the south and you got someone from the north, and that really doesn't work. The last time it really worked, we talked about it before, Lyndon Johnson, and from Texas, in that election in 1960 when John Kennedy picked him that guaranteed the election. When Michael Dukakis tried to the same thing, Massachusetts and Lloyd Bentsen -- it didn't work. It is no longer geographical. It is a different sort of context.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think this will make a difference because until these last couple of weeks, one of the biggest barriers between George W. Bush and the White House has been the ability of the Gore people to say, this is someone who is not ready for primetime who isn't someone suitable to have his finger on the nuclear button. Cheney's nomination takes that off the table and makes it easier for Bush. So I think it very well could make a difference. The other thing that's fascinating is you know what Cheney did as Gerald Ford's chief of staff in the 1970s, Nelson Rockefeller was the Vice President and Gerald Ford had given Rockefeller all sorts of grandiose promises, most powerful Vice President in history. And basically marginalized him. When Rockefeller came to Ford to complain, Ford would say, I want to give you these jobs, and I want to give you that kind of power, but it is that terrible chief of staff of mine Dick Cheney. Blame it on him. He was the bad man.

RAY SUAREZ: We'll talk more about the Vice President later. Thank you all.

FOCUS - MINORITY OUTREACH

JIM LEHRER: Moving now to the Republican's attempt to include more minorities. Kwame Holman reports.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: There's no escaping the reality that the party of Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln.

KWAME HOLMAN: It was at another convention three weeks ago, the annual meeting of the NAACP. In Baltimore, that George W. Bush admitted his Republican party had made mistakes in addressing the concerns of America's minorities. (Cheers and applause) And minority concerns were the major theme of General Colin Powell's keynote address to the Republican convention Monday night.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: The party must follow the governor's lead in reaching out to minority communities, and particularly the African American community, and not just during an election year campaign.

KWAME HOLMAN: A quick scan of the party's rank and file seated on the convention floor capsulizes the problem. The state delegations are overwhelmingly white. Nearly a dozen state delegations are completely white. In an Associated Press survey, only 4% of the Republican delegates here in Philadelphia described themselves as African Americans.

RENEE AMOORE, New Majority Council, RNC: We understand that we need to reach out, okay, and really do a better job. And not just every four years because there's an election, but right after that next election we need to get out and go door to door.

RENEE AMOORE: Hawaii.

KWAME HOLMAN: Renee Amoore is the convention's assistant secretary, and presided over the opening roll call of states Monday evening. She's also deputy chairman of Pennsylvania's Republican party. But these days, Amoore's energies are focused more on the new majority council, an arm of the Republican National Committee created to encourage minority participation.

RENEE AMOORE: We have about 30 to 35 new majority councils on the state level. That means each chairman we spoke to said we want to have this new majority council, and then that filters to the rest of the folks in their state. And so those folks get together to make sure that people of color are elected in very important roles, whether it be state rep or school board, those type of things. We want more people who look like me out there representing us so that we can have a seat at the table.

KWAME HOLMAN: More people who look like Renee Amoore followed her to the convention stage Monday evening as the Republican Party tried to present itself as the party of inclusion. But as the convention's deputy cochairman, Oklahoma's J.C. Watts, is on stage all week long. Watts is the only black Republican in the House of Representatives, and as a member of the House leadership, he refutes criticism that the Republican congressional agenda offers very little for minorities.

REP. J.C. WATTS: You know, since we've been in the majority, unemployment in the black community is down to its lowest levels ever in the history of the country. The middle...

KWAME HOLMAN: Do you claim some credit for that?

REP. J.C. WATTS: You bet. Yeah. The middle class has expanded over the last five and a half years since we've been in the majority. In the black community, the middle class has expanded. Home ownership is at its highest levels in the black community since we've been in control in Washington. I think black people understand as well. I don't think they want the government wasting their tax dollars. You know, black people pay taxes. And, you know, the government doesn't say, because you're black, you don't have to pay income taxes.

KWAME HOLMAN: Of course, increased support among African Americans translates into votes. One recent poll shows George W. Bush is attracting only 17% of the black vote in America. His trouble attracting Hispanic support is not as pronounced. He's popular in his home state of Texas, and polls show Bush trailing Vice President Gore among Hispanics by only 12 points nationwide. And in delegate-rich California, Hispanics could decide who carries the state, and ultimately, who wins the election. That's the message the 162- member California delegation, the largest here in Philadelphia, heard repeatedly early Monday morning. They filled the quaint but un- air-conditioned auditorium at Drexel University for a preconvention pep talk, first from Arizona Senator John McCain. followed by Texas Congressman Henry Bonilla. Bonilla has volunteered to spread the party's minority outreach effort among Hispanics.

REP. HENRY BONILLA, (R) Texas: There's a huge myth that exists out there among Democratic voters and those on the extreme left that somehow your political philosophy is based on the shade, the color of your skin, and somehow the darker your skin is that you're automatically predisposed in your mind to move to the left on the political spectrum. Nothing could be further from the truth.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rod Pacheco is a state assemblyman from riverside.

RODERICK PACHECO, California Delegate: You know, there are two parties in this country, and Hispanics, African Americans have tended to gravitate towards the Democratic Party, and we've made a mistake in doing that I think. And the mistake is this: If we go to any one party, if we were all in the Republican party for example, that party would take us for granted like the Democrats do now. We need to be in all parties, and we need to be in both parties.

KWAME HOLMAN: Many political analysts have said California is in the Gore column. Do you contest that and will Latino voters be the difference?

REP. HENRY BONILLA: Well, right now Al Gore is ahead. There was a time a few months ago when George W. Bush was ahead with the Latino voters, and he's now generally within single digits of Gore in California. George W. Bush is going to work hard in California. That state is not by any means Al Gore's for his just to walk away with and he knows it. And we feel very confident that if we have to make him use resources in his own state that he's supposed to have, then that takes away efforts that he's going to have in other swing states that swing out from the Midwest all the way to New Jersey.

REP. J.C. WATTS: It's in motion. It's moving forward. Does that mean we are going to get 30% of the black vote -- 50% of the Hispanic vote in November? No, it doesn't, but it does show some movement, show some teeth being put into it. And I think Governor Bush gives an excellent opportunity to advance that effort pretty far down the field.

KWAME HOLMAN: And so it surprised no one today that Governor Bush surrounded himself with Hispanic well-wishers shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Some closing words now from Shields and Gigot, and to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields; "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. We've had an extraordinary side show happening just outside these convention hall this is week between President Clinton and George Bush, the former President. Basically, President Clinton saying George W. Bush is a daddy's boy, and George Bush responding, so is your mom. How unusual is this, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: It is very unusual. It is very unusual. And I think it is a minus in particular for Al Gore. I talked to a Democrat close to Bill Clinton, knows him well, and he says I'm mystified. I don't know why he would want to do that. The timing this week is not the time to do it for one thing. And bringing his father into it in a way makes Bill Clinton look like a partisan and diminishes him in his attractiveness to be able to help Al Gore. And it looks like he's trying to diminish a former President. Now, one of the things that happened in the last couple of years is former President Bush has gotten more popular than he has been in eight years. He's about 60% approval rating in the latest "Wall Street Journal" poll on a personal level. That's much more popular an a personal level than President Clinton himself. The politics for the Republicans are keep it coming.

GWEN IFILL: Mark, Dick Cheney basically told Jim Lehrer earlier, bring it on.

MARK SHIELDS: I think both parties are off script. The Republicans don't want President Bush or Mrs. Bush, the President's mother did it today, on "Good Morning America" to take a shot at Bill Clinton, because the convention has been so well organized not to be partisan. I agree with Paul that it is harmful and hurtful to Al Gore because Al Gore has to in, the next three weeks, emerge as an independent, strong figure. And every time President Clinton interferes or intervenes, he's more of a derivative figure it and looks like the President is controlling the campaign and calling the shots. But President Bush apologized and he knew that he had overreacted and then President -- but I don't know, Gwen, who tells the Presidential nominee's father when, in fact, the President -- he was the most recent Republican President to cool his jets to bite his tongue or just put it in cold storage. I don't think anybody does that. Nobody --.

PAUL GIGOT: But the nominee.

MARK SHIELDS: But the nominee himself had to come back, he had to respond in part, I think it was an emotional and honest response on his part. But he couldn't be seen as answering the charge that he was a daddy's boy.

GWEN IFILL: Dick Cheney comes to the floor of the convention and he's going to finally be nominated and accept the nomination. What's he bring to the party?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think he brings reassurance. Or at least he'll try to bring reassurance. He's an adult, seasoned -- everything that we said about him in the past, a seasoned voice. I think going along with the tone of this whole convention, I would not expect him to sound like many previous Vice Presidential nominees have sounded, which is a partisan note or a critical note of the opponent. In this case, the Bush people don't want that to happen. They just want him to say, look, George W. Bush made a mature choice.

GWEN IFILL: Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: Nearly a 3-1 favorable rating. Better known and high regarded than the Republican leadership in the Congress - Speaker Hastert or Senator Lott or Tom DeLay, for example. But the task really he has in my judgment is he's got to reach out to undecided voters tonight who are very neutral and not positive toward him. He's got to do the same with black voters. And I think most important, we have yet to see whether -- the issues definition of him. The charge that he's too conservative on specific congressional votes, that has not played out in this election. But he starts with a positive introduction to the American people.

GWEN IFILL: Just a taste of what's to come tonight. Mark and Paul, see you both later.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: In the non-convention news of this day, President Clinton today postponed the first federal execution in 37 years. He granted a temporary reprieve to a condemned drug smuggler and murderer from Texas. The execution date was pushed back from August 5 to December 12. The President's order said the delay would give the condemned man time to apply for clemency under new guidelines. The World Health Organization today accused the tobacco industry of scheming to undermine its antismoking efforts. The United Nations health agency issued a 140-page report. It said cigarette makers tried to have its budget cut and distorted results of scientific studies. The head of the WHO spoke in Geneva, Switzerland.

DAVID NABARRO, Executive Director, World Health Organization: What is worrying about this report is it suggests that a small group of companies who do not represent the governments or the interests of the people in the countries that are member states of the WHO have attempted to subvert the process by which WHO is run.

JIM LEHRER: A major British tobacco firm denied the allegations. So did Philip Morris in this country. It said in a statement it wants to work with the WHO on youth smoking and marketing restrictions.

Iraq today marked the tenth anniversary of its invasion of Kuwait. The ruling Baath Party newspaper blamed Kuwait and the United States for the war. The U.S. Led an international alliance that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in February 1991. There was new trouble today for Israeli Prime Minister Barak. His foreign minister, David levy, resigned. He accused Barak of making too many concessions to the Palestinians at the Camp David summit. Then, the Israeli parliament voted to call early elections. The vote was only preliminary, but it underscored Barak's struggle to maintain a governing coalition. We'll be back on most PBS stations at 8:00 PM Eastern Time with our complete coverage of this third night of the Republican National Convention, and we'll return at our regular NewsHour time tomorrow, as well as being with you throughout the convention on-line. I'm Jim Lehrer, and thank you for now.