Perhaps no vice president in history has had a greater role in shaping policy than Richard Cheney.

He was a key figure in making the case for the Iraq war. He was the chairman of the administration’s energy task force. And on September 11, 2001, he gave the order to shoot down hijacked commercial airplanes that could be used as missiles against additional landmarks.

Two months ago Washington was rife with rumor that Mr. Cheney would be dumped from the ticket. But the president has stood by him, and the vice president has been campaigning throughout the country.

Tonight’s speech will be an opportunity for Mr. Cheney to re-launch his political star. Many delegates to the Republican convention have high hopes for Mr. Cheney’s moment in the spotlight.

Tom Reynolds, a delegate from Connecticut, told the Associated Press that “A lot of people are questioning his future, his remaining on the ticket. Once he gets up there, his ratings will go up. He’s an excellent speaker and I think he’ll electrify this campaign.”

On the campaign trail Mr. Cheney has touted the administration’s success in capturing Saddam Hussein and the message it sent to rogue proliferators. At an August 24 campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, the vice president said, “When Colonel Ghadafi in Libya saw us succeed against Saddam Hussein, five days after we arrested Saddam, Colonel Ghadafi went public and said he was going to give up his aspirations to have nuclear weapons.”

“The vice president’s going to say a personal tribute to President Bush and the leadership he’s shown,” his spokeswoman, Anne Womack, previewing the speech, told the Associated Press. `He’ll also draw a contrast between the strong and steady leadership President Bush has shown … and Senator Kerry’s lack of vision or leadership during his 20 years in the Senate.”

With little chance that Mr. Cheney will seek the presidency in 2008, he has a rare opportunity to further the agenda of the president, which he described on a campaign stop in Missouri as to destroy an enemy we cannot “reason with, or negotiate with, or appease.”

To many conservatives, the vice president is a steadfast defender of the Iraq War, even as the president has waffled on the connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. In the lead-up to the war, the vice president often spoke publicly about intelligence reports on meetings between Mohammad Atta and a senior Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague. Indeed, he took a personal interest in the intelligence-gathered by the CIA on Iraq and on more than one occasion arranged for briefings on this matter at Langley.

As the president’s diplomats were preparing to make the case for a resolution on tougher international inspections in Iraq in August 2002, the vice president publicly stated his doubts that such a process would work. On August 26 of that year in a speech before a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Mr. Cheney said, “A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow “back in his box.'”

Such frank statements have earned the vice president the praise and respect of conservatives. “He is a beacon in rough seas,” said the vice president of foreign and defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka. “He stands his ground. He is a true believer. He is not affected by the ebb and flow of the political tide, but unlike others who fit that description, he is a man of genuine imagination. He sees American promise but he also has a vision of the dangers in the world.”