Boston Globe editorial, 8/3/2000

PHILADELPHIA -- At a campaign stop in Ohio yesterday, George W. Bush pledged to ''rally the armies of compassion'' if elected president. Shoe-horning ''armies'' and ''compassion'' into the same sentence may require mental acrobatics for some, but not for the throngs of believers at the GOP convention, which last night focused on images of compassion and tonight will, quite literally, showcase the armies.

The theme Monday was ''Opportunity with a purpose - leave no child behind.'' First lady-hopeful Laura Bush, a former schoolteacher and librarian, was scheduled to speak about literacy - also, perhaps not coincidentally, the pet cause of first lady-emeritus Barbara Bush. Videos and speeches featured after-school programs, immigrant success stories, community service, and foster-care families. Children's faces were everywhere, and all of it to a background score of swelling strings.

But tonight, expect a parade of patriotism and military firepower, including tributes to war heroes from Norman Schwar zkopf to John McCain. Speakers will reinforce Bush's message of restoring military morale and preparedness. Tonight's theme: ''Strength and security with a purpose.'' Even US Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona, a gay Republican, who might seem an odd choice for a speaker when gays in the military are not always welcomed, will likely stick to his script: international trade.

This is the ambition of the Republican message for 2000: to hold seemingly contradictory values in a single, coherent ideology. Compassionate conservativism is only the half of it; Bush aims to turn traditional Democratic themes on their head by arguing that the welfare state hurts more poor people than it helps; that, in Bush's phrase, ''the soft bigotry of low expectations'' shortchanges schoolchildren through special education and bilingual education; that guns in the home make children safer; and that ''tough love'' will work not just for at-risk teenagers but for a grateful nation hungry for limits.

As George W. Bush seeks to remake the Republican Party in his own image, voters would do best to consider his deeds, not just his words.