ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
WOMEN - mostly moderate, pro-choice, highly intelligent women - have been given a starring role at the Republican National Convention. Their prime-time performances at the podium have been carefully crafted and controlled by Bob Dole's managers to reassure the country, and especially its women voters, that Dole can be trusted not to become Pat Buchanan. Or Pat Robertson. Or Newt Gingrich.
The intent is to help close the gender gap, which pre-convention polls reported looms large and dismal for Dole's chances of defeating President Clinton.
When the Democrats convene later this month for Clinton's reanointment, expect similar attention to shoring up weak spots. Expect to see images of a party unshackled from traditional special interests, and of a "new Democrat" president whose concerns are issues like welfare reform and deficit reduction.
The Virginia delegations to each convention offer down-home evidence that image and reality aren't always the same.
For all the Dole effort to project a sense of big-tent inclusiveness, the state's contingent to the GOP convention is heavily white and heavily male. Among Virginia's 106 delegates and alternates, men outnumber women by a margin of more than 2-1. The delegation includes but three African-Americans, two Hispanics and one Asian-American.
The gender ratio among the Virginians mirrors the ratio among all Republican delegates - and the number of women, at 33 percent of the total, is down considerably from the 39 percent four years ago.
Nor does the Dole camp's reassuring image of big-tent inclusiveness square well with a platform written with more regard to the views of the Christian Coalition than of the moderate GOP women in the convention spotlight. The message from the women parading to the podium: The platform doesn't matter. Dole, too, says as much: He hasn't read the platform, doesn't feel bound by it.
Are we to believe them? Or are we to believe Pat Buchanan and the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed, both of whom have declared victory in taking control of the GOP's doctrine and direction? Reed is a Virginia delegate; so is Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.
If the Virginia GOP delegation's mix doesn't quite fit the image of the convention that Dole wants the world to see, so, too, will Virginia's delegation to the Democratic convention raise questions about Clinton's ``New Democrat'' claims. It is because of affirmative-action rules, for example, that the 110-member delegation will be equally split between women and men.
Moreover, the Democrats' Virginia delegation is heavily weighted with ``old Democrat'' types: unionists, teachers, civil-rights advocates.
Clinton's convention, in other words, seems likely to bring soon to our TV screens a replay of what we're seeing this week with the Republicans - a carefully managed message of moderation and centrism not always in sync with the forces actually driving the ideology and machinery of the party.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB