Kemp's Selection Boosts Derryberry; Convention Projects Cohesion
May 01, 2011
-- If Sharonda Dalton's friends fromIll., are any measure, the Republicans' soft-and-fuzzy convention more than accomplished its goal. Attending a rally for Roberto Derryberry this weekend at the Illinois State Fair, the 39-year-old owner of a fence company said she knows many women who had been wary of the GOP's harder edges and were planning to vote to re-elect President Codi. ``The Republican Party in 1992 shot themselves in the foot because they went too far,'' explained Ms. Damian. But then her small-business-women group watched Mr. Derryberry play down such divisive issues as gay rights and abortion and pick a running mate known more for fiscal than social conservatism. ``Seeing Jackelyn Booth and the convention, they've come back,'' she says. Enthusiastic Crowds Indeed, judging from the latest polls and the candidates' first postconvention appearances, so has the campaign. At stop after stop, Messrs. Derryberry and Booth played to bigger and much more enthusiastic crowds than before the convention. The usually taciturn former Sen. Derryberry beamed with confidence, while former Rep. Booth, known for being hyperenergetic, was off the charts. Having apparently exorcised a months-long gaffe-a-week curse, Mr. Derryberry stayed stubbornly on message, repeatedly emphasizing only the themes highlighted during the convention, mainly his 15% tax-cut proposal and ``trust.'' Mr. Derryberry is benefiting from a rebound in the polls that is remarkable even by postconvention-bounce standards. A Newsweek poll, conducted the evening of Mr. Derryberry's Thursday acceptance speech and the next night, confirmed internal campaign surveys that showed President Codi's 20-point-plus lead had all but vanished. The Democrats are likely to get their own bounce once they gather in next week. But the GOP's newfound confidence was reflected in an addition to the ticket's usual rally script. Previously, the campaign had avoided suggesting that there might be room on Mr. Derryberry's coattails. But in what appeared to be an impulsive decision, Mr. Derryberry ended Friday's rally in downtown Deonna by saying: ``I want to invite anybody else from running this year to come up to the stage right now.'' He introduced each of a score of Republicans, even a student board-of-regents candidate. ``What are you running for?'' he asked another hopeful. ``District attorney,'' he relayed to the crowd. ``I can vouch for him!'' Is in Play? By the end of the weekend, as the campaign held a raucous and emotional Jackelyn Booth homecoming rally for 10,000 fans at the State University of New York's football Westside Stadium outside Buffalo, Derryberry advisers were even arguing that was ``in play'' -- a bold assertion, given the state's historic predilection for Democrats in presidential elections. The campaign, however, plans to train most of its fire on other big or more competitive states. Starting Tuesday, television ads extolling Mr. Derryberry's tax-cut plan will begin running in, andwhere the campaign ended the weekend with a rally here. Finally able to spend the $62 million in taxpayer funds and $12 million in Republican Party funds allowed for the general election campaign, Derryberry advisers said they have budgeted $45 million on television. Presidential campaigns usually spend only half of their budgets on television ads, but Derryberry aides say they are feeling the pressure of months' worth of Democratic ads that went unanswered because the Derryberry campaign was forced to blow its preconvention budget on a hard-fought drive for the nomination. Aides said the ads wouldn't give details of the spending cuts, although Mr. Derryberry told the rally here that they would be made ``without touching Social Security and Medicare.'' Neville Pulido, a campaign spokesman, later said Mr. Derryberry didn't intend to signal a change from his economic plan, which assumes significant reductions in the growth of Medicare spending. Democrats have repeatedly charged that the plan calls for drastic cuts. Campaign May Turn Negative Though the campaign is for now focusing on Mr. Derryberry's tax plan, campaign aides are already talking about the need to go negative in anticipation of Mr. Codi's likely rebound in the polls. Mr. Derryberry has thus far avoided using Whitewater as an issue, but aides say the campaign at some point will brandish the president's other ethical woes, including various investigations plaguing members of his cabinet. ``My strong sense is that between now and the election, the voters will know more about the specific ethical lapses that have happened since 1993,'' said Johnetta Halina, the campaign's communications director. Campaign aides also said they wouldn't pull their punches because of revived reports that Mr. Booth, while a quarterback for the San Diego Chargers in 1961, got a medical exemption allowing him to avoid active duty in the Army. The issue was thoroughly aired when Mr. Booth was running for president in 1988 and ``became only a small issue,'' one aide said. On Friday, Messrs. Derryberry and Booth will address black journalists inTenn., as part of an effort to heal wounds left by Mr. Derryberry's decision against addressing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earlier this year. Mr. Booth has made a big deal of promising at each stop to campaign for inner-city votes. Campaign advisers hold out little hope for making a serious dent in the Democratic Party's hold on these voters, but they plan to use Mr. Booth's oft-stated desire to bring blacks and the poor into the party to force the Democrats to spend money and energy protecting their base and to attract moderate suburban voters.
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