by Marc Carnegie
NEW YORK, Aug 30 (AFP) - Republicans were ready to get down to business here on Monday, launching their national convention with hopes of convincing a divided American people to send George W. Bush back to the White House.
With polls showing Bush and Democrat challenger John Kerry running almost neck-to-neck, the party was banking on film star Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to set the tone for the four-day gala.
The convention was set to open at 1400 GMT Monday with Giuliani and popular Arizona Senator John McCain to speak on the first night and Schwarzenegger and First Lady Laura Bush the second.
Bush will make his grand appearance to accept the nomination for president on Thursday, starting the final phase of a sometimes bitter campaign that will wind up when voters go to the polls on November 2.
The 58-year-old Texan has made the war on terror the centrepiece of his re-election bid, but Republicans got a taste of popular anger over Iraq as demonstrators staged a massive anti-Bush rally here on Sunday.
Defying a sweltering late-summer sun, more than 100,000 protesters flooded the streets of New York for a noisy but peaceful protest that attracted war veterans, grandmothers, ageing hippies and fed-up Americans of all stripes.
New York police said they arrested 200 people, mostly for disorderly conduct and away from the march itself. There were no major incidents or injuries, police commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The demonstrators marched in front of Madison Square Garden, the famed New York sports arena where the convention will kick off on Monday morning amid an unprecedented security lockdown.
SWAT teams in all-black riot gear, secret service agents, New York police and other security personnel have turned the normally bustling area into a virtual fortress.
A high-tech intelligence analysis center with staff drawn from 20 agencies opened in New York last week to guard against the possibility of terrorist attacks during the convention.
The Bush administration has said it has intelligence that al-Qaeda may want to strike again before the election, and many New Yorkers have been angered that the Republicans chose to hold their convention in the city.
The symbolism of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon carry great weight for Bush, whose time in office has been dominated by those attacks and the subsequent wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in New York on Sunday, and spoke to supporters from Ellis Island with the altered skyline of the city -- the empty space where the Trade Center towers stood -- behind him.
"My job here this week, and in the two months ahead, is to tell people all across America how steadfast our president is," Cheney said. "He is exactly the leader we need for these times, and we need him for four more years."
Bush critics have accused the Republicans of trying to mask the party's true values by scheduling prime-time speakers like Schwarzenegger and Giulani, whose moderate policies sometimes clash with those of the president.
The keynote address of the convention is being given by a Democrat, Senator Zell Miller.
One of the highlights on Monday's opening night is a speech by McCain, a maverick Arizona senator whose character was rubbished in the 2000 Republican primaries and who had flirted with Democratic hopeful Kerry.
But according to advance copy of his speech, McCain was to laud the president's campaign against terrorism.
"He has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our time, and I salute him. I salute his determination to make this world a better, safer, freer place," McCain was to say.
Republican strategists have meanwhile fashioned the convention to appeal to swing voters, and out on the campaign trail on Sunday, Bush urged his supporters to reach out for votes on all sides.
"Don't ignore Democrats," he said in Wheeling, West Virginia. "Don't overlook discerning independents."
In keeping with US political tradition, Kerry was expected to lay low this week and cede the media spotlight to his opponent.
But just as the Republicans did during the Democratic convention in Boston one month ago, the Democrats have set up a political "war room" here to try to counter the media attention drummed up by the four-day extravaganza.