HILADELPHIA - The anointing of Texas Governor George W. Bush as his party's standard-bearer begins today as Republicans gathered at their quadrennial convention attempt to stamp an inviting smile on their candidate and their party over four days of highly scripted proceedings.
The City of Brotherly Love filled to capacity yesterday as thousands of protesters marched in the streets, an alternative ''shadow'' convention booed Senator John S. McCain's warm words for Bush, and hundreds of delegates from around the nation welcomed the presumptive vice presidential nominee, Dick Cheney.
But Cheney also was the subject of far less flattering attention yesterday as the Democrats launched a 30-second ad blasting the former Wyoming congressman for extremist views and for votes cast in the 1980s.
In the new Democratic commercial, airing in 17 battleground states, Cheney is attacked for opposing the Clean Water Act, Head Start, the school lunch program, and health insurance for workers who lost jobs. He also has been taken to task for voting against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela while Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa.
Cheney, secretary of defense under President Bush, spent much of the day defending himself from the onslaught of criticism from Democrats, appearing on all three major television networks' Sunday talk shows.
''Going back and looking at 2,000 votes, I might find a couple I would do differently,'' Cheney conceded on CBS's ''Face The Nation.'' ''But I don't have any apologies for, nor do I plan to change my position on, those issues.''
And the Bush campaign quickly attacked Vice President Al Gore for what it called his love of negative politics as several recent national polls show him trailing Bush in the double digits.
''I think it's a sign of desperation that Al Gore would distort a good man's record, and I think it'll backfire,'' Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Meanwhile, Bush held a single public event yesterday, speaking to several hundred supporters in a ballpark on the outskirts of Cincinnati. It was a remarkably light schedule even by his own standards; Bush aides said he was blocking out time to write two short speeches he plans to deliver to the Republican convention via satellite, including one this evening.
Tonight, the massive First Union Center will be the setting for speeches by Bush's wife, Laura, and Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Also briefly featured tonight will be Conna Craig, a Boston-area woman who was abandoned at birth, put in foster care, and later adopted. Craig heads the Institute for Children, which promotes adoption for children in foster care and serves as an example of what Bush likes to call compassionate conservatism.
All week, the convention will feature people who are either helping society, like Craig, or who will praise Bush's character, like Jan Bullock, whose late husband worked closely with Bush even though he was the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas.
The point, according to GOP operatives, is to soften the Republican edges and reach out to voters who have been turned off to the party in the past. In particular, Bush is determined to avoid the pitfalls that his father, President Bush, experienced at the 1992 convention in Houston. Then, delegates hissed and hooted at journalists, and strident speeches by Patrick J. Buchanan and several Christian conservative ministers created a climate that damaged the reelection hopes of Bush's father.
''The message to the base is, when you're talking about Bush, talk this way,'' said John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.
But Pitney said the Republicans risk overdoing the gentle tone.
''The danger if they try too hard is that it's not going to look inclusive; it's just going to look phony,'' said Pitney.
Andrew Card, the former Massachusetts state lawmaker who is running the convention, is resolute that the party and its candidate are on the right course.
''People complain when there's too much hardball, too many hatchets out there,'' Card said. ''This is a significant departure from the past. It's important we show America exactly what Governor Bush wants to do.''
If the Democrats have their way, voters will look at his record in Texas to decide how he would govern as president.
Part of that effort comes in the form of a self-described ''Truth Squad,'' 20 Texans - teachers, parents, educators, and elected officials who arrived here yesterday saying they plan to warn America of what they consider George Bush's failed leadership and mismanagement.
''We are the Paul Reveres of the 21st century,'' said state Represenative Lon Burnam of Fort Worth. ''Bush has a five-year record that shows he doesn't care anything about the working people.''
The group, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, contended that Bush failed on environmental protection and on providing for the health and well-being of children. Under Bush, according to the group, Texas ranked 48th on the list of best states in which to raise a child. They criticized the governor for fighting efforts to expand coverage for the Children Health Insurance Program, as well as opposing an increase in the national minimum wage - although the state has more than 1 million workers who would benefit from such an increase.
While the four-day convention and accompanying festivities are set up to honor and scrutinize Bush, McCain, the Arizona senator who gave the Texan a hard run in the primaries, is receiving his share of the spotlight as well.
After a ballyhooed bus trip on his ''Straight Talk Express'' from Washington to Philadelphia on Saturday, McCain continued to keep a high profile. He began with a television appearance, a less than smooth speech at the ''shadow convention,'' a book signing, and a reception for the delegates he won in the primary.
Throughout, McCain maintained, as he has for weeks, that his tightly packed, interview-heavy convention schedule was not about himself, but about Bush, to whose election McCain has vowed to devote himself.
He has declared his support for Bush continually over the past two days. But at the shadow convention, organized by conservative commentator Arianna Huffington, Common Cause, and other watchdog groups, McCain's audience ranged from loyal Republicans to advocates for legal marijuana.
There, McCain's advocacy of campaign finance reform was quite popular with the audience, most of whom greeted him with a standing ovation. But when he launched into his list of what he said were Bush's considerable talents, he was jeered for bringing party politics to the event. People yelled ''Get him off!'' and ''Gong! Gong! Gong!'' when McCain said he salutes Bush ''for challenging his opponent to run a positive campaign.''
Wherever McCain goes these days, the events of this year's primary contest, and the question of his future ambitions, follow.
So it was that McCain was asked about his comment during the primaries that Bush was a ''Pat Robertson Republican,'' and his claims that Christian conservatives were hijacking the GOP.
He was sorry for what he said about Bush, McCain said.
''What I meant,'' he said, ''was, I am the superior candidate.''
As the convention progresses this week, police are expecting more and more protesters.
Yesterday, a mass of demonstrators representing at least a dozen disparate causes took to the streets. Police shepherded a parade of hundreds marching through downtown under banners supporting abortion rights, relaxed drug laws, the elimination of racism, the destruction of military weapons, and militant feminism.
There were elaborate floats, papier-mache characters and a loud protester who seized on an incident here earlier this month by bellowing over a bullhorn, ''Philadelphia ain't free; stop police brutality!''
In their midst, a lonely man walked the same streets on stilts, carrying a placard that declared, ''I have no political agenda.''
Anne E. Kornblut, Yvonne Abraham, and Tatsha Robertson of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
