Bush talks education, war in closing Convention speech

NEW YORK -- President Bush closed out the Republican National Convention Thursday night with a rousing speech that ranged from domestic policy to national security, and began what is sure to be an intense campaign for re-election.

Continuing the trend of the convention of recalling President Ronald Reagan, Bush highlighted the former president in his opening remarks, saying, "My father served eight years at the side of another great American -- Ronald Reagan. His spirit of optimism and good will and decency are in this hall, and in our hearts and will always define our party."

The president also returned to his 2000 campaign message -- compassionate conservatism.

"I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives."

A number of Penn students were in attendance at the convention and approved of Bush's message.

"Without anti-terrorism you don't have anything," College sophomore Jay Gleacher said, adding that he approved of the president's focus on foreign policy in the speech.

Bush dedicated the first half of the speech to domestic affairs with a special emphasis on the economy, as well as stressing the need to reform the tax code.

College junior Alexander Chester, a Minneapolis native, was not impressed.

An admitted Democrat who would not disclose how he got his tickets, Chester said Bush's "speech was broad-blanket statements," and that he found it "offensive to women."

He did note that there was a high volume of young people at the convention, "although [the group was] not very diverse."

During the speech, Bush contended with a couple of protesters who snuck in. However, they were drowned out by delegates' chants of "four more years" before being removed from Madison Square Garden.

The president set a high premium on education, including his plan to "double the number of people served by our principal job-training program and increase funding for community colleges."

He also spoke of testing all students and cited a highly populous Latino high school in Georgia while saying, "No dejaremos a ningun nino atras. We will leave no child behind."

The president then cited a figure that "most new jobs are filled by people with at least two years of college, yet only about one in four students gets there." He stressed the importance of early intervention programs for students falling behind as well as renewed focus on math and science.

After touching on domestic issues, the president moved on to foreign affairs and the focus of his war on terror. Bush focused on what has been accomplished so far in Afghanistan as well as standing by his choice to go into Iraq.

Bush made a point to thank British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his support, and received a large round of applause when highlighting Israel as "our good friend."

Between the uproarious chants of "four more years," the president got a lot of laughs when he said, "People sometimes have to correct my English -- I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger started doing it."

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