Republicans will again put on a kinder and gentler face when they meet starting Monday.

Just as they did in their past two conventions, they’ve given featured speaking slots to so many prominent party moderates that some conservatives are grousing.

Featured speakers include Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has both campaigned for President Bush and assailed attacks on rival John Kerry’s patriotism, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has kept greater distance from Bush than any other prominent Republican.

Indeed, just as the Democrats sought last month to soft-pedal their liberal side, the GOP speakers’ roster appears designed to play down the more conservative aspects of the party’s agenda.

It’s nothing new. Republicans have done that in every convention since the sharply conservative tone of their 1992 gathering in Houston was seen as a factor in their loss of the presidency.

In 1996, after the GOP takeover of Congress, the convention bypassed conservative congressional leaders and gave featured slots in San Diego to McCain, Gen. Colin Powell and several prominent women.

The president’s strategists have based their campaign strategy on spurring a maximum turnout of Republican voters, especially religious conservatives. That’s where Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are concentrating most of their campaign appearances.

The issues agenda being pursued by Bush and the GOP congressional leadership has featured such conservative mainstays as making tax cuts permanent despite the budget deficit, passing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and tort reform that curbs lawsuits against big companies.

Still, while the strategy of playing up the moderates and de-emphasizing the conservatives is not new, there is a significant difference between this convention and those of 1996 and 2000.

This is the first GOP convention since 1992 with a Republican in the White House, and the first in 76 years in which the party controls the House, the Senate and the presidency. That means the party’s issues agenda is not only important in judging Bush’s record to date, but it could be even more important in the future since its chances of enactment will likely increase if he wins re-election.

Already, some GOP congressional leaders are talking of adding two more controversial items: a “flat tax” or a national sales tax under which all taxpayers pay the same rate and most deductions would be eliminated, and a Social Security reform measure letting workers put some retirement funds into private accounts.

So far, Bush has been reluctant to talk about these matters. Maybe Bush will talk about these subjects when he discusses his second-term agenda. But initial indications are that this convention may be long on generalities and short on the GOP agenda.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.

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