A Turbulent Approach Coming into Houston

To begin his climb from the electoral cellar, George Bush needed a fortnight of seamless good fortune: a small triumph of diplomacy with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, James Baker's return to political service, then a smooth glide to Houston for joyous coronation by a united Republican Party. Maybe the convention week will go that way. But in the first half of the Republican fortnight, the President seemed unable to awake from what is turning out to be a nightmarish fight for re-election.

The meeting with Rabin went well enough until the closing press conference, when a CNN reporter threw a question that had rested half-buried like a live grenade from an old war. Had Bush, as Vice President, participated in a "sexual tryst" with a longtime assistant? Unsubstantiated gossip about | Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald had floated among reporters and politicians -- including Bush's staff -- since the early '80s, then escaped last week through a brassy headline in the New York Post based on a brief reference in a new book. "It's a lie," the President responded.

An appearance later on NBC entangled the President in another issue. What would he do if his granddaughter someday sought an abortion? George Bush, the grandfather, answered sensibly and humanely: He would try to dissuade her but would stand by her, regardless of the decision, which would ultimately be hers. That sounded too close for comfort to the idea that each woman should have the final say, and thus came close to contradicting the Republican position that would outlaw abortion.

As news of that exchange circulated, the conservative faithful in Houston were pummeling moderates who had sought to soften the party's rigid pro-life platform position. The pro-choice faction had been led to believe that they would get at least a token concession, a sign the party would lean at least a little toward the "big tent" concept its late chairman, Lee Atwater, had formulated. But the platform drafters not only flattened the pro-choice faction; they also took a hard line against gay rights, gave short shrift to environmentalists and called for an indefinite moratorium on new business regulation. Donald Devine, one of the many right-wing activists monitoring the platform, labeled this collection of planks "as conservative, or more so, than any since 1980."

While Bush placated true believers, they alone cannot produce an electoral majority without reinforcements from moderates and independents. Winning them becomes more difficult the further right Bush drifts. As he bid farewell to the State Department, Jim Baker sounded an inclusive note: "There is a conservative agenda for helping people and for responding to their needs. We want to empower them to make their own choices, to break away from dependency. We want to give them economic security, a stake in society." He was, at last, describing for Republicans a purpose that his friend George Bush had been unable to articulate amid all the distraction.