CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.

"They have had their chance. They have not led. We will." That was the theme of Governor George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. He also commented "so much promise to no great purpose," referring to the Clinton-Gore administration and their lack of leadership over the last eight years.

This administration has presided over one of the greatest economic booms in our country's history, yet there are so many things they haven't accomplished. Social Security is still bankrupt, our health care crisis continues, and just last month Clinton vetoed the removal of the "marriage-tax penalty." (For those of you unfamiliar with this phenomenon, married couples filing jointly pay a higher tax than if they were single and filed separately. It basically punishes you for getting married.)

Many people expected Bush to attack Clinton, but I thought the speech was rather mild. He made the expected references to a lack of character in the White House, as did vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney, but they were rather veiled. Primarily, Bush took the opportunity to introduce himself to voters.

He described his childhood, his marriage to Laura, their children, etc. He also laid out goals for his administration which included increased pay for members of the armed forces (the number of armed services members who receive food stamps is staggering), giving private insurance tax credits for lower-income people and reducing the tax rate from 15 percent to 10 percent on the lower-income brackets.

From the very beginning of the convention, there were comments about the racial makeup of the convention delegates, participants and speakers. The Republican Party is not known for its diversity, but that is beginning to change. Locally, an African-American man, Johnny Horne, is the Republican nominee against Democrat Brenda Turner for State Representative. The national convention attempted to reflect the increasing role of minority groups in the Republican Party.

They say in politics that no matter what you do, you'll manage to offend someone, and that was definitely the case at the convention. Republicans are called the party of "old, rich white guys," and sometimes that seems to be true. The average delegate was a 47-year-old white male. However, the youngest delegate was 19 and there were more minority delegates than ever before.

This is not to say that we're getting the support of the NAACP just yet (although after the anti-Semitic comments by the chairman of the Dallas, Texas NAACP about Democratic VP candidate Joseph Lieberman, I'm not sure I'd want their support).

The Republicans were accused of "trotting out the token minority" by having former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell (widely discussed as possible Secretary of State in a Bush Administration) as headline speaker the first night of the convention. In my opinion, this was an unfair comment.

There were several minority speakers, including Congressman J.C. Watts, an African-American minister from the Philadelphia area and an openly gay congressman. The speaker I was most impressed with, however, was Condoleezza Rice. She spoke before Sen. John McCain on Tuesday night.

Although she is unknown to many voters, she is an expert on Russian politics and is George W. Bush's foreign policy advisor. She is expected to be named as National Security Advisor and to the best of my knowledge, would be the first African-American woman to hold that post.

The Democratic National Convention was two weeks ago in Los Angeles, where the party nominated Joe Lieberman as its vice-presidential candidate. Al Gore received a large bounce in the polls after the Convention, making it a statistical dead heat according to the latest poll numbers. Labor Day weekend is traditionally the beginning of the final stretch to the Presidency, and it appears to be getting interesting. Stay tuned ...

This column first appeared in the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga newspaper, The University Echo, on August 28, 2000, and is reprinted here courtesy of U-WIRE.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

• Seeing old friends on the dishline
  
• Tuning in on the Republican Convention
  
• Continuing the mission of the CSC