Pataki Brings Delegates to Their Feet, Calling Bush ‘No Ordinary Leader’

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The New York Sun

Governor Pataki used his prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention last night to invoke September 11, skewer Senator Kerry, and praise President Bush as “no ordinary leader” in “no ordinary time.”


“I thank God that on September 11th we had a president who didn’t wring his hands and wonder what America had done wrong to deserve this attack,” Mr. Pataki said in his first nationally televised speech. “I thank God we had a president who understood that America was attacked, not for what we had done wrong, but for what we do right.”


“He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge,” the governor said as he introduced the president for his acceptance speech. “He is lighting the way to better times, a safer land, and hope.”


The speech brought delegates to their feet several times, cheering and waving American flags.


Although the governor was briefer and less memorable than Mr. Giuliani, his 15 minutes on national television could not help but raise his profile in the national Republican Party, improving his position if he chooses to run for the White House himself in 2008.


Echoing the central theme of the convention, Mr. Pataki portrayed President Bush as a forceful leader in a time of crisis, and defended the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as the best response to the terrorist threat.


“President Bush understands we can’t just wait for the next attack,” he said. “We have to go after them in their training camps, in their hiding places, in their spider holes, before they have the chance to attack us again.”


“Senator Kerry says, ‘America should go to war not when it wants to go to war but when it has to go to war,'” Mr. Pataki said. “Well, senator, the fire fighters and cops who ran into those burning towers and died on September 11th didn’t want to go to war. They were heroes in a war they didn’t even know existed. America did not choose this war. But we have a President who chooses to win it.” “This is no ordinary time,” Mr. Pataki said. “And George W. Bush is no ordinary leader.”


Mr. Pataki also kept up the attacks on Mr. Kerry as indecisive and unsteady.


“This is a candidate who has to Google his own name to find out where he stands,” he said.


“You know, as Republicans we’re lucky,” he added. “This fall we’re going to win one for the Gipper. But our opponents – they’re going lose one with the Flipper.”


He argued that Mr. Bush, by contrast, has kept his promises to create jobs, cut taxes, raise standards in public education, and provide prescription drug coverage for the elderly.


“George W. Bush says what he means,” Mr. Pataki said. “He means what he says. You can trust him.”


Mr. Pataki began with an emotional thank you to Americans who helped New York recover from the destruction of the World Trade Center, and expressed pride in how New Yorkers themselves responded to the tragedy.


New Yorkers “woke up one morning and walked the kids to school, and suddenly the streets were full of sirens and there was fire in the sky,” he said. “You


know what they did, the people of this state? They charged into the towers, they stood on line like soldiers to give blood. … This great state rolled up its sleeves, looked terrorism straight in the face, and spat in its eye.”


In keeping with his introductory role, Mr. Pataki kept the focus on President Bush, his Democratic opponent, and the 2004 campaign. The one time he injected himself into the speech was at the beginning of his discussion of Mr. Kerry’s record, when he pointed out that he had attended Yale with both candidates – a year ahead of Mr. Bush, a year behind Mr. Kerry.


“John Kerry was head of the Liberal Union, I was head of the Conservative Union,” he said. “We never got to debate back then, but the senator has asked for a full and frank discussion. Well, let’s start now.”


By selecting Mr. Pataki to introduce him at the convention, President Bush paid homage to the top Republican official of the host state, rewarded a key political supporter, and associated himself with another key figure in terrorist attacks that have defined his presidency.


The moment gave Mr. Pataki – who favors legalized abortion, embraces environmentalist causes, and supports gay rights – the chance to define himself as a loyal Republican before a nationwide TV audience.


“Today is the day he essentially declares his candidacy – by being at the convention, and making a speech, and hoping there are people in the room who remember him,” a Democratic political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, said yesterday.


Mr. Sheinkopf argued that Mr. Pataki has quietly been positioning himself for a White House run since his last reelection in 2002. He pointed to the governor’s budget battles with the Legislature, his outspoken defense of the war in Iraq, his fund-raising for the Bush campaign, and his frequent travels on behalf of the president – including trips to the pivotal primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.


As a workmanlike public speaker, Mr. Pataki also could be counted upon not to overshadow the acceptance speech by Mr. Bush.


It seems clear that Mr. Pataki’s national profile could use some elevating. A sampling of delegates interviewed before his speech were unaware of the speculation about his presidential ambitions that New York journalists have been buzzing about for the past week.


“Frankly, we just haven’t focused on him,” said a delegate from Char lottesville, Va., Apostolos Catsaros. “We really haven’t noticed Governor Pataki, other than the fact he worked closely and supported Mayor Giuliani.”


“I’ve heard of him for a long time,” said Jean Cody of Cookeville, Tenn. “I don’t know that much about him.”


Ms. Cody had a much stronger reaction to Mr. Giuliani, whose speech on Monday was widely praised. “I just love that man,” she said.


Both New Yorkers face an uphill fight with the many Republicans who differ with their positions on social issues.


“Although I consider him the mayor of the world, I would not support him for president because I consider myself a strong conservative,” Mr. Catsaros said of Mr. Giuliani. “He probably couldn’t carry the conservative base.”


Other social conservatives at the convention were open to the idea of nominating someone from the moderate wing of the party.


“We know – even though we don’t believe in abortion, and we’re not for gun control – that there are good people that are,” Ms. Cody said.


Another Virginia delegate, William Thomas of Richmond, gave an additional reason for not supporting Messrs. Giuliani or Pataki. “I favor our Virginia senator, George Allen, and he’s my choice for 2008,” Mr. Thomas said. “But I think either of them would be great on the ticket with Senator Allen.”


Mr. Pataki’s office put a historic spin on the speech, notifying reporters that the phrase “no ordinary time” was also used by Eleanor Roosevelt in her speech to the Democratic convention of 1940.


There was a brief disturbance while Mr. Pataki was at the podium when a protester holding a sign reading “Strong but Wrong” appeared at the back of the hall. He was immediately escorted away by security agents.


The New York Sun

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