PHILADELPHIA - William D. McKinney, a Massachusetts delegate to the Republican National Convention, doesn't seem like much of a power broker. He has, for example, bypassed the expensive hotels to stay in a $25-per-week Boy Scout campground. But in many ways, the State Street Bank manager is what this convention is all about.
McKinney is more conservative than many Bay State Republicans. He worked successfully to pass an antiabortion plank in the platform that is at odds with the abortion-rights view of many Massachusetts Republicans, including Governor Paul Cellucci, and is even more strict than the position of nominee-in-waiting George W. Bush.
While the Bush forces have preached a tone of ''compassionate conservatism'' and have worked to moderate portions of the GOP platform, the delegates themselves may be as conservative as any gathering of Republicans in recent years. But what is remarkable about the Philadelphia gathering is that there is so little ideological discord - certainly nothing akin to the disruption of the 1992 convention, when Patrick J. Buchanan undercut the candidacy of President Bush by declaring that the nation was engaged in a religious and cultural war.
''I wouldn't classify the delegates as being more moderate. I certainly didn't get that impression,'' said Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, whose job as platform committee chairman was to produce a more moderate document without a bitter fight. The more conservative delegates went along with the platform's moderation because ''I got the sense that they want to win.''
As if to underscore the point, Thompson wore a popular silver button that said simply, ''W.'' The double meaning has not escaped delegates: It is Bush's middle initial but also stands for ''win.''
The conservatives did win most of the major battles on the platform. While a faction wanted to insert a call to abolish the Department of Education, the proposal was killed largely because many delegates felt it was unrealistic and made the party look as if it didn't care about education. But it was hardly a major triumph for moderates.
Indeed, the moderate wing of the party exemplified by Cellucci and former governor William F. Weld has not emerged as a major force. Instead, many moderates and those who initially opposed Bush have put aside their differences - for now.
''It is our intention to be unified and harmonious, absolutely,'' said Peter Spaulding, who was anything but that when he chaired the New Hampshire campaign of Senator John S. McCain of Arizona earlier this year. McCain beat Bush in that state and nearly upset the Texas governor's race for the nomination. Since then, the McCain forces have mostly kept quiet about their differences.
Still, divisions remain and some Republicans worry that the strategy will backfire. Without a more direct appeal to moderates during this week's convention, they worry that the independents and swing Democrats who may determine the election will be turned off. That is especially a concern among GOP supporters of abortion rights.
''We are polite, to a point,'' said Ann Stone of Republicans for Choice. ''We're good Republicans.'' But she worried that the party's retention of the antiabortion plank will hurt in the November election.
Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, shares that concern. ''There are 200 things that could turn an election,'' said Specter, who is urging Bush to do much more to appeal to moderates and especially women.
While the Bush forces have gone to great lengths to promote the prime-time speeches of some prominent Republicans who are minorities and moderates, such as retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, the delegates are overwhelmingly white and conservative.
A survey by the Associated Press found that 54 percent of the delegates are attending their first convention; the average age is 47; and 61 percent are male. Eighty-three percent are white; 4 percent are black; and, perhaps most surprising given Bush's emphasis on Latino voters, only 3 percent described themselves as Hispanic.
Claude A. Allen, the Virginia secretary of health and human resources and one of the most prominent African-American delegates, said he has been given a prominent role at the convention, helping to shape the platform.
''I would say we are united, but not uniform,'' Allen said. Allen declined to describe himself as either moderate or conservative - he preferred ''American'' - but he said he fully supports the platform.
It helps the GOP that Buchanan, who has been perhaps the most divisive force in the party for the past eight years, is no longer a Republican. Buchanan is seeking the Reform Party nomination and is in the very low single digits in the polls. The Buchanan viewpoint is still represented here, but with almost none of the anger and fire.
The AP survey found that the 2,066 delegates make up a well-heeled, well-educated professional crowd; only 0.2 percent said they did not finish high school, while 40 percent said they had some kind of college postgraduate study. Thirteen percent are politicians, 12 percent are attorneys, 9 percent are retired, and 0.1 percent - meaning about two - are social workers.
Education was deemed the most important issue by 21 percent of the delegates, followed by taxes, cited by 13 percent; foreign policy and the economy, by 11 percent each; and moral issues, cited by 9 percent. Only 6 percent said health care was the most important issue.
Santa Mendoza, a delegate from Connecticut, has her own informal survey. She said that at recent conventions, 70 percent of the delegates were ''ultraconservative.'' This year, she said, the makeup is ''50 percent ultraconservative and 40 percent moderate and the rest don't know. In Connecticut, I'm considered conservative, but here I'm a moderate.''
McKinney, the Massachusetts delegate, clearly is more conservative than many others in the state's delegation. Under party rules, each state delegation elects a man and a woman to serve on the platform committee. McKinney got the male slot by attending a June 28 meeting in Boston at which only 17 out of 37 delegates showed up for the vote. Some of those who might have opposed him, including Cellucci, didn't come for the vote.
The other Massachusetts delegate on the platform committee, Jean Inman, is more moderate, in the tradition of Cellucci and Weld. There had been some hope among moderates that a Bush selection of Governor Thomas Ridge of Pennsylvania as a running mate would give them influence. But Ridge, who supports abortion rights, was bypassed in favor of former defense secretary Dick Cheney, who opposes abortion and had one of the most conservative voting records of any US House member during the 1980s.
But moderates insist they are not worried.
''We want to win in November; that is the bottom line,'' Inman said. ''Oh my God, do we want to win.''
