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Morning News

Republican National Convention: Cheney Winner of the Week; Delaware Loser

Aired July 31, 2000 - 9:01 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is a colorful and busy scene here. Republican delegates from every state gathering for this opening session. A live picture now from the floor below. And the floor of the Comcast First Union Center filling up with Republicans and the intent is obvious, sending George W. Bush to the Oval Office.

This morning, party leaders will do some housekeeping, handling delegate credentials, and the entry of Bush's name into the nominating process.

For more, CNN's Kate Snow, among our many, many correspondents here in Philadelphia, now brings us up-to-date on what's happening thus far.

Hey, Kate.

KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill.

Well, later today, they are going to be doing things a little bit differently than they have in the past. Once they make the nomination of George W. Bush, they are going to begin what they are calling a roll call rolling vote. They are going to start it tonight and then each night 15 to 20 state's delegates will cast their votes for Bush. That's different than how they usually do it. Usually, they would wait until the third night of the convention and at the very end they would have a two-hour-long roll call.

Well, that's a little bit boring, and so they've decided to spread out the vote over these first few nights and then end up with a nomination on Thursday night.

Now, most of the 2000 delegates have already arrived here in Philadelphia. Last night, the Texas delegation arriving, they had a party last night, as many of the delegations did. About 124 delegates here from Texas, they are staying at a very central location in a very nice hotel, you might imagine that because they are from the home state of the nominee.

Now, many of the state delegations were also in Camden, New Jersey last night. That is where they threw a party to kick off the celebration, kick off the week with fireworks on the Delaware River, just across the river from where we are here. Delegates are not the only ones in town, and here in Philadelphia, though, there are some protesters as well. Yesterday, they made themselves heard out on the streets, a group called Unity 2000 organized a march. Now this march was sanctioned by the police, it was organized, it was a permitted march, it was more like a parade than anything else, everything from abortion rights groups there to anti-death penalty folks to people who are representing environmental interests, a very wide range of views represented, a very festive crowd.

Police say they had absolutely no problems, no arrests were made. And they say their goal is to have to make as few arrests as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER JOHN TIMONEY, PHILADELPHIA POLICE: We have various levels of tolerance, if you will. I mean, we are not going to tolerate in any fashion whatsoever any violence, assaultive behavior, or serious property damage. Absent those two things though, you know, we can work out a deal. We can hammer out compromises.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: About an hour from now, protesters from another group, a local group, are planning to take to the streets here in downtown Philadelphia. They are planning to march from downtown to where we are here at the convention center. That march is not permitted, it does not have a city permit. So police have said they will allow them to march as long as they don't get out of hand. If anyone becomes violent, if there is any severe property damage, then they may have to make some arrests.

Leon, back to you.

HEMMER: All right, Kate, it's Bill, but nonetheless -- Kate Snow outside of the First Union Center here in Philly.

Governor Bush not here yet, he is in Ohio again today. Bush spent the night in Cincinnati, and has campaign events during the day at the University of Dayton, then later in Columbus, the capital city. Yesterday, he and his wife, Laura, campaigned in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.

Laura Bush will speak tonight about education and, of course, she will talk about her husband.

A lot to look forward to starting up this morning, and Bill Schneider now joins us live here in Philadelphia.

Nice to see you again, Bill, with our weekly "Winners & Losers" segment.

First of all, Dick Cheney, he has been the favorite target thus far for Democrats, he's got a bulls-eye right there on his back. How is he faring? WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, he was the obvious winner last week. He ran the vice presidential selection process and he won it. Sort of like the governor winning the lottery. Does Cheney balance the ticket? Well, geographically he and Bush both live in Texas. Cheney had to re-register in Wyoming just to make it look like he and Bush come from different states.

Does he balance demographically? No, two middle-aged white men. Does he balance the ticket ideologically? No, two conservatives. But he does balance the ticket in one respect, maturity, experience, he is the un-Quayle, he is also the un-Gingrich. He's conservative, but he's not a shrill partisan. Bush hopes that Cheney will appeal to swing voters, not with ideology, but with civility.

HEMMER: The Democrats also starting running the first negative ads of the campaign this past weekend and the target again was Dick Cheney.

Meanwhile, America's first state, Delaware, is getting hit hard here, and some of its delegates got caught in that downpour yesterday. What's happening in this down arrow here?

SCHNEIDER: I'd say Delaware was the loser because they sponsored a plan, the Republicans of Delaware, to change the Republican primary calendar so that small states, including Delaware, would vote first; big states later. On Friday, Governor Bush sent word down to the Rules Committee to kill it. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is dead.

Why did Bush kill it? Because he didn't want a floor fight at this festival of good feeling, because he didn't want to tick off big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, whose votes he needs, and because he didn't want those big states to try to buck the new primary calendar by shifting from primaries to caucuses because, you know what, caucuses are often dominated by conservative activists. And when he runs for re-election, as he expects in 2004, he doesn't want those activists making trouble.

HEMMER: Meanwhile the twist now, let's get to Republicans here, just a different attitude, and some people say you have got to go deep in the history to find out why?

SCHNEIDER: Well, you've got to go back to 1984 before you find what we are going to see here in Philadelphia, which is happy conservatives. Conservatives are determined not to give Bush one minute of trouble. I mean, why should they? They got Dick Cheney, they got what they wanted on abortion in the party platform. So they are willing to go soft and mushy here. They've gotten the message that the way to win is to show conservatism with a happy face, that's Reagan conservatism, not Gingrich conservatism. The theme of this convention is: No Newts, no Pats.

HEMMER: That kicks us off, what should we look for throughout the day, though, because it is a long one here.

SCHNEIDER: Well, this -- today's session is the only one where we can see any real dissension or debate, the Rules Committee Report, that's where the Delaware Plan will come up to change the calendar -- may come up, if the minority tries to put it on the agenda. That's where conservatives may try to stage a mini-revolt because they don't like certain parts of the platform on things like education. Moderates may try to complain about the wording on abortion, which has not changed. Then of course -- and that, of course, is the platform issue.

Right now we don't anticipate any floor fights of any significance in this session, but you know what, conventions can be unpredictable, and if anything is going to happen at all, it is going to happen at today's session. And why do you think they put the most divisive issues, the rules, and the platform during the day, because that's when viewership tends to be the smallest.

HEMMER: That and get it out of the way too. We're going to hear the word purpose a lot this week too. Every theme for throughout the week has the word purpose in it. Today is: "Opportunity with a Purpose: Leave No Child Behind."

SCHNEIDER: I think that's part because things are good in the country and the Republicans are saying: We've got prosperity, but what's the purpose? So they say we are going to add to that prosperity with a sense of moral purpose.

HEMMER: Good deal. Bill Schneider, thanks again. And you can talk to Bill coming up here on our Web site at CNN.com/chat, 9:20 a.m. Eastern time, that is about 12 minutes from now, Bill. Bill Schneider right there at CNN.com for more there.

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