In this time of choosing for America, the Republican National Convention brilliantly showcased its greatest asset, President George W. Bush.

Walking the streets outside of Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, one saw the forces of democracy in play.  Outside the great arena, thousands chanted themselves silly over the perceived evils of a second Bush term.

Sixty-something Vietnam era radicals walked arm and arm with twenty-year-old anarchists, a pageant of unbridled incivility, self-righteous wrath, and plain old hate.  Inside the great arena, a celebration of President Bush and the party he represents.  This, too, was a pageant of sorts, but one of patriotism, optimism, and always-in-style Americanism.

By the time Bush had finished speaking on Thursday night, two things had happened.  The first was that the protesters, who were not the influence they had hoped they would be, drifted away– back to the inconsequentiality that defines radicalism of their sort.  The second was the realization of the Kerry campaign that it was in serious danger of becoming inconsequential as well.

On the eve of the GOP Convention, the big news was the Bush campaign’s pre-convention bounce, which showed the president gaining in all categories, and leading ever-so-slightly in most presidential polls.  Liberal beltway pundits looked on in dismay as a combination of damning Swift Boat ads, Bush’s adherence to message, and the Kerry campaign’s breakdown in discipline, shifted the dynamics of the race.

The talk had been that the presidential race had been John Kerry’s to lose.

What a difference a week makes.  The latest polls after the convention show Bush with a double-digit lead, and a prevailing wisdom among the pundits that now say it is Bush’s race to lose.

Republicans in New York, the masters of the big show, raised the bar of presidential politics.  Instead of Kerry dictating the terms of the race via domestic issues or his service in Vietnam — something that he must be devoutly sorry he ever did — Bush has made this election a referendum on leadership, stability, trust, and ideological certainty.

In essence, Bush has appealed to the electorate’s lofty sense of nationalism.  Kerry will try to redirect the campaign towards a tug of war over domestic issues, but it seems somewhat contrived in the face of the war on terrorism and what that means to the country for years to come.

From start to finish, the GOP pounded John Kerry, specifically by name.  More importantly, the so-called “Republican moderates” left their “moderate-ness” at home and spoke about the conservative values claimed by the majority of Americans.

From Senator John McCain’s absolute endorsement of Bush as the right man to lead the nation in war and “see it through to a just end,” to Bush himself, shelving the more floral prose he could have used, instead asking the country in simple journeyman fashion to “stand with me,” the Republican convention was nothing short of defining the world as it stands today, and the dynamics of a party to guide America through it.

Every convention speaker added to the importance of this election.  The great hall in New York echoed with the past, present, and future realities that have transformed the nation today.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the “world’s mayor” after 9/11, did something that the media have all but refused to do: remind the country of the horrors of 9/11, and just how dark it was those first few days.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger extolled the virtues of a freedom-loving democracy, buoyed by capitalism, and guided by an infectious optimism.

First Lady Laura Bush reintroduced her husband to the country, relating just how awesome, and awful, the decisions of life and death can be on one man.

And what was it like to be “mad as Zell” in an arena full of Republicans?  For Democrat Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, it was a duty to the country he so plainly loves.  Sparing nothing in his denunciation of his party and its standard bearer, Miller’s speech was reminiscent of politics forty years earlier, when “focus-groups” were nonexistent, and full-throated stem-winders were the norm.

Possibly more hated now by Democrats than Clinton Special Prosecutor Ken Starr, Miller and his stirring oratory will do more for Bush because of its simple, overriding message: family, and country, over party.

The steady, confident hand of Vice President Cheney gave America a preview of what’s to come in the fall debates: Senator Kerry’s twenty year voting record as the Senate’s most liberal member.

We are two months out from Election Day, and as we have seen from the past month alone, fortunes can change quickly.  But the ebb and flow of events — those that can be controlled — have firmly come down to Bush’s ability to direct them.  The unexpected remains the wild card and the debates the ace up one’s sleeve.

It has been said that George W. Bush is gifted with the perfect political poker face.  Just when you count him out, he pulls an inside straight that nobody saw coming.  But the next two months will be a game of wills, with either John Kerry or George W. Bush collecting the biggest pot of all, the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency.

In this time of choosing for America, the Republican National Convention has brilliantly showcased its greatest asset, President George W. Bush.  Polls notwithstanding, you feel something major has happened, something that has made history stop and take notice.  You feel secure in knowing that the current occupants of the White House are real in their plans for defending America, and sure of the way to do it. 

You sense that, whatever may come, the Bush/Cheney team has showed the seriousness required of leaders, and an understanding that good, sound judgment will never be upstaged by nuanced, flip-flopping policy.

After all the speeches are made, and the balloons are dropped, and the last delegate has gone home, you quietly reflect upon the cacophonous roar of the last four days.

If you’re like me, you said to yourself, “Yes, Bush has the right stuff to lead this nation, and there is nothing nuanced about it.”