HILADELPHIA -- There'd been precious little forage for carnivores down at the bottom of Broad Street till Dick Cheney rode the meat wagon onstage.
Finally, it was raw meat time for the protein-starved loyalists, whose pent-up longings for steaks, cutlets, ribs, and loin burst into full fury at Cheney's invocation of the man the Republicans love to hate.
In a 180-swerve after two days of making nice, the delegates declared war against Bill Clinton. Al Gore was a distant second, almost an afterthought as the Bush machine ramped up its assault on the man who cannot run to succeed himself, but who still mesmerizes his enemies.
''They came in together,'' said Cheney in his laconic delivery, ''Now let us see them off together.'' Like so many thousand umpires giving the thumb's-out sign to an errant baserunner, the delegates waved their reverse-Tomahawk-Chop in blissful unison. After being penned in to narrow made-for-TV-guidelines by the Bush campaign scripters, told to swallow their differences on abortion or anything else and just mouth happy-talk to the trouble-seeking press, the delegates rose to Cheney's trolled bait like hungry trout.
''On the first hour of the first day, he (Bush) will restore decency and intgegrity to the Oval Office. Soon, our men and women in uniform will once again have a commander-in-chief they can respect ... help is on the way.''
Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! At last, the Clinton-bashing unleashed, but maybe too late to enlarge the incredibly shrinking TV audience. Interlarding excessive praise of his own guy with denunications of the incumbent, in the fine old tradition of running mates doing the heavy lifting of negative campaigning, Cheney blamed Clinton for the sinkhole that is politics in D.C.: ''In Washington today, politics has become war by other means, an endless onslaught of accusation, a constant setting of groups one against another.'' Just look at what Bill Bradley said about Gore, humphed Cheney.
If you were a Democrat, it was a night for a Philly cheese steak, because you saw a lot of cheese atop the beef. Mike Dukakis howled with laughter yesterday at the Bush camp's superfluity of supposedly righteous indignation over negative campaigning. ''It's so phony,'' chortled the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee from his Northeastern University office. ''Old George Bush - he's very upset about negative campaigning,'' laughed the Duke, who was savaged by Bush's negative ads using black criminal Willie Horton. ''Let's bring back character and integrity to the White House,'' jibed Dukakis, ''like Iran-Contra.''
Inside the hall, the GOP felt triumphant. ''Mr. Gore tries to separate himself from his leader's shadow,'' said Cheney, ''But somehow we will never see one without thinking of the other.'' That's the Bush strategy laid bare: run against Clinton, against Monica, against ''a definition of what `is' is.'' But that also means running against record-breaking prosperity, the lowest unemployment in decades, America's might unchallenged abroad. Morphing Gore out of Clinton's profile can backfire, if voters prefer what they've got to the risk of change.
Cheney was preaching to the choir here. But we don't yet know if the rest of America wants to join this particular church. Cheney is a bit of a flatliner in the oratory department. As a longtime handler of political frontmen the former defense secretary is even-toned, discreet, self-effacing. He delivery was crisp; the bones he tossed the ravenous and raptuous gang in the hall drew bell-ringing applause in almost every paragraph. But there was a disconnect between his message and his mien.
At 59, Cheney is only five years older than the guy who picked him, and has five times as much political experience at the national level. But his health and energy level are suspect, after three heart attacks, a bypass, and a weight gain that makes him look more than five years Bush's senior. Few politicians get to make half-hour speeches on national television in front of thousands of riotously happy partisans. There's a knack to it. Cheney spent half his air time smiling blandly, sometimes quizzically, as the crowd responded to his sallies with full-throated roars. He waited patiently for the recurring din to subside, smiling wanly at some junctures, a Jack Benny look-a-like playing the classic straight man.
It was a gear shift of an evening for the thoughtful Cheney, whose hallmark over three decades as an insider's insider has been careful assessment and cautious judgment. The role change from bespectacled bureaucrat Clark Kent to fire-breathing Superman was jarring to those who know Cheney's past. But he has changed before, from anonymous backroom staff guy to war-waging defense secretary to multi-millionaire oil-company oligarch as he doubled Halliburton Corp.'s government contracts in five years as CEO to more than $2 billion.
Cheney told the delegates he left Washington eight years ago in a U-Haul truck he drove to Wyoming. Now, if he wins, he'll need an armored car to cart away $40-million-plus in stock options from Halliburton's Texas headquarters.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
