NEW YORK, Aug 24 (AFP) - Republicans gather next week near the site of the country's worst terrorst attack to tout President George W. Bush's capacities as a wartime commander and launch him on his final run for re-election.
Some 50,000 delegates, guests and journalists will descend on this staunch Democratic bastion as the Republicans take their turn in the national limelight at the party's four-day national convention opening Monday.
With fears of a possible terrorist strike, and tens of thousands of anti-Bush protesters expected to hit the streets, officials plan to throw a tight security web over the normally chaotic city.
Up to 10,000 police officers will join federal and state police for convention duty, closing down main roads and patrolling a concrete barrier to be erected around the site at the famed Madison Square Garden.
The stakes will be high for Bush as the Republicans meet barely three miles (five kilometers) from Ground Zero, where two hijacked airliners wiped out the World Trade Center and killed 2,752 people on September 11, 2001.
The president, who has made his war on terror a centerpiece of his claim to a new four-year lease on the White House, goes into the gala looking vulnerable in his nose-to-nose race with Democratic Senator John Kerry.
Polls show Bush's approval rating at or below 50 percent, with a majority feeling the country is on the "wrong track." Both barometers historically bode ill for his chances in the November 2 election.
More than half of Americans are still dissatisfied with the way he has handled the military operation in Iraq, and the economy has shown new signs of weakness just after he proclaimed it had "turned a corner."
If Kerry's goal at the Democratic convention last month was to introduce himself to a US electorate that knew too little about him, Bush has no such worries as a familiar -- and often polarizing -- conservative figure.
But his four-fold mission in New York, where he and Vice President Dick Cheney will be formally nominated, is no less critical to his electoral hopes.
Four days of speeches and pageantry are expected to highlight his leadership capacities and the country's need for continuity and steady stewardship in the perilous post-September 11 era.
"That's what I continue to try to convince the American people -- that I am the right person to continue to lead the country in the war on terror," Bush told reporters Monday at his Texas ranch.
Secondly, Bush was expected to sketch out a more positive vision for a second term, responding to mounting criticism he had failed to make explicit his program.
He is already speaking of an "ownership society" giving Americans more of a stake in their country. Fiscal reform, if not new tax cuts, could also figure prominently as well as topics such as energy independence and education.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's all-important acceptance address on September 2 will "very much be a forward-looking speech talking about his agenda for America that builds upon his record of results."
Thirdly, the Republicans have made no secret of their intention to hammer home their attacks on Kerry as a weak-kneed northern leftist who has waffled on security issues for all his credentials as a Vietnam war hero.
They are likely to hit at the Massachusetts senator's vote for military action in Iraq and his later opposition, as well as his past attempts to trim defense and intelligence spending.
Lastly, the Republicans are working hard to make sure their convention is not hijacked by the party's right wing, alienating moderates like in 1992 when they sank the re-election hopes of Bush's father.
This year they have stacked their prime-time program with more centrist speakers such as actor-cum-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arizona Senator John McCain. They even have a token Democrat, Senator Zell Miller of Georgia.
The convention will set the stage for the formal general campaign that traditionally opens after the Labor Day holiday on September 6. Both sides expect the race to stay razor close until November.