The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 36

A 1 0 The Beacon Journal Friday, July 22, 1988 I. illli I I. IHHIIl 111. DEMOCRATS IN ATLANTA CONVENTION Early bir ds get arre stay as latecomers are By Susan Bennett Knight-Ridder Newspapers Atlanta They had a lot of time to kill. So, as they awaited the arrival of their presidential nominee, Michael S.

Dukakis, Democratic delegates bopped and rocked to pounding rock music and even tossed an inflated cow around the convention hall. Knowing that the doors of the Omni arena were likely to be closed because of overcrowding, as they had been the two previous nights, many of the 4,162 delegates filed into the convention center at least four hours before the arrival of Dukakis. The Wisconsin delegation put aside its $12 foam-rubber Cheddar cheese hats that have landed them prime-time spots on national television to don red, white and blue plastic "straw" Dukakis hats being handed out free. The cheese state delegates also provided the star of the warm-up show a 5-foot-long, blue-and-white, inflatable plastic cow, equipped with an udder and emblazoned with "Wisconsin that famous flavor starts here." Other crowd favorites were a life-size, rubber-headed dummy of Vice President George Bush, wearing a sign saying, "Where was George?" the baiting question posed by Sen. Edward M.

Ken nedy of Massachusetts in his convention speech Tuesday night. Carrying the effigy was Marge Friedman, a Park Forest, 111., delegate who is a social worker. "The Republicans don't care about the poor or the young. The Democrats will trample them," she said. Just as the early arrivers had feared, Atlanta fire officials ordered the Omni doors closed again Thursday evening after the floor filled to capacity.

About 200 people many of them delegates crowded around two entrances to the arena, some of them cursing and shouting, "I'm a delegate," and demanding admission to the hall. Among those locked out was Rep. Mary Rose Oakar of Cleveland. One delegate caught on the outside, Roberto Mondragon, the former New Mexico lieutenant governor, scribbled a makeshift sign and held it up to the glass doors arena in the face of security people inside. "Get help.

I'm being held hostage," the sign said. The arena had been sealed in midses-sion on Tuesday and Wednesday nights on fire officials' orders. "Everybody knew we were going to have this problem," said party finance director Donald R. Sweitzer. "If you don't have foresight enough to get in to meet your obligations as a delegate, I don't have a lot of sympathy." Party officials said a system had been set up to get super delegates and "essential personnel" into the hall Thursday night even after it was closed.

But the new system would not accommodate regular delegates, they said. At least 100 people were ejected from the Omni on Wednesday night after security officials determined that many of the paper passes that must be worn by everyone in the hall were fakes. Most of the bogus credentials were held by people with the Pennsylvania delegation, who said they had bought them from an unidentified man in a men's restroom at the nearby headquarters of Cable News Network. entsen accepts mmei it mmmmm mmmmmmmm nomination, calls job equality No. 1 By Nolan Walters Knight-Ridder Newspapers 'wmmmmm I.

wv. i- VMt Atsodatsd Prat basic issues of justice and opportunity, we stand united. Democrats agree that a good job at a fair wage is the passport to opportunity in America." Those differences of opinion were clearly apparent when Bentsen stepped to the podium, as his supporters' cries of "Bentsen, Bentsen" were rivaled by shouts of "No Contra aid." Bentsen, unlike most other Senate Democrats and the Democratic platform adopted Monday, supports aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. Bentsen's speech took dead aim at the soft underbelly of the Reagan-Bush economic recovery. "The Reagan-Bush administration likes to talk about prosperity," Bentsen said.

"But the farmers in Iowa don't hear them. The oil field workers in Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana don't hear them. The factory workers in John Glenn's Ohio don't hear them." Bentsen asked Rep. Dan Ros-tenkowski, to nominate him for the ticket. Former Rep.

Barbara Jordan of Texas and Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota seconded the nomination. "Lloyd Bentsen has everything it takes to become one of Ameri ca's great vice presidents," Ros-tenkowski said. "Lloyd Bentsen is straightforward, Lloyd Bentsen is smart and, yes, Lloyd Bentsen is tough. He knows that compromise keeps the political process running." Atlanta A long, lanky Texan the living symbol of the Democratic Party's attempt to stretch its arms back around Middle America accepted his party's nomination for vice president Thursday night.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, chosen by Michael S. Dukakis in an effort to attract wayward conservative Democrats back to the party, urged his party's often-contentious factions to put aside their differences to take back the White House. And he urged his audience including hundreds of Jesse supporters still unhappy with his selection to realize that "equality of opportunity is the ultimate civil right." Bentsen, a silver-haired native of the Rio Grande Valley who was added to the ticket in hopes of winning Texas back from the Republicans, also sought to portray the differences between him and more liberal Democrats including Dukakis as good for the ticket. "We are a mirror of America.

We Democrats do not march in lockstep behind some narrow, rigid ideology of indifference. We are not gray grains of oatmeal in a bland porridge of privilege," said the 67-year-old three-term senator. "Of course we have differences of opinion," he said. "But on the John Glenn greets Lloyd Bentsen on podium as the Ohio senator introduces the vice presidential nominee Gl Bush, hails entsen enn powders Senator tells delegates Ohio will rally to Democratic ticket By William Hershey Beacon Journal staff writer Thursday morning, Glenn shed his coat and pounded the podium at an Ohio delegation meeting, bashing the Reagan administration for cutting spending for basic research. "You talk about eating your seed corn for the future!" exclaimed Glenn to the delight of the audience.

He told the Ohioans that the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket knows that America needs those research dollars and a top-flight education system to remain No. 1 in the world. At every stop he made this week, Glenn went out of his way to pledge his enthusiastic support for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket. Yet, in a quiet moment early in the week, Glenn briefly opened a window on the feelings hidden under the rigid training of an ex-Marine fighter pilot. "Does it smart?" Glenn asked, of being passed over a second time for the vice presidential nomination.

"A little, sure. Is it a mortal wound? No." Then he added: "We don't get everything we might prefer out of life." a rousing cheer with this line: "Yet, despite that record, they want four more years. But, at the rate they are going, I think some of them are going to end up serving 10 to 20." Attacking "right-wing religious extremists," Glenn said: "The last thing this country needs is to have the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John rewritten by Meese, Bakker, Swaggart and Falwell." (He was referring to Edwin Meese, attorney general; and evangelists Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell.) Glenn, a 1984 presidential candidate and a vice presidential hopeful in 1976 and this year, portrayed Bentsen as the champion of causes important to Democrats. "The White House says there's nothing we can do about unfair foreign trade that closes American factories and steals American jobs," said Glenn. "Well, Lloyd Bentsen believes that when other countries take advantage of us, you can't talk like Rambo and act like Bambi." Sawyer time on podium brief for the Democratic ticket." Brenda Parks, a Dukakis delegate from Cincinnati, said it was "a very good speech." "It helped him (Glenn)," she said.

"It's not the same John Glenn we heard 12 years ago, when he gave the keynote for Jimmy Carter," said Summit County Executive John Morgan. "I think he needed to get us stirred up." During his speech, Glenn took after Vice President George Bush, blasted the Reagan administration on ethics and scored right-wing evangelists. "We all know there are other people who say they're real Tex-ans," said Glenn of Bush. "How many real Texans do you know whose idea of Mexican food is retried quiche?" After saying that more than 100 Reagan officials have been indicted or left office under questioning of their ethics, Glenn got Atlanta John Glenn, the man who hoped to be on the platform Thursday as Michael Dukakis' running mate, combined humor and partisan fervor to introduce Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as the man who ended up with the job.

Glenn, whose introduction included the playing of The Marines' Hymn, heard chants of "O-HI-O" during his five-minute speech that was stretched to 15 minutes by applause. "I am here to say this: Ohio will rally to this ticket. Ohio will lead the way in giving Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen the victory that will change the course of this nation," the U.S. senator from Ohio said. "I feel proud," said Glenn's wife, Annie.

"Of course, it's bittersweet, but that's normal. John likes Lloyd. He's going to work U.S. Rep. Tom Sawyer of Akron spoke to the Democratic National Convention Thursday on one of his favorite topics education.

But unless you were watching CNN, you missed him. Sawyer spoke at 6:15 p.m., almost two full hours before network coverage began. "Today, we Democrats come here together in this great hall at the edge of the next American frontier, this time a global threshold filled with challenge and hope and danger with commitment to a renewed American school house," he said in his two-minute remarks. "That commitment is a promise to those who will carry on what we have started in thanks to those who came before," he told the delegates. AT THE PARTY CONVENTION '88 TSWt (isf Another View: Being average made her famous 3 Jackson is one of the tenslvely from a letter she had received from an anonymous 39-year-old mother of three In Lorena, Texas, who complained that people like her had been forgotten over the past eight years.

Although at first she asked Richards to keep her Identity secret, Alexander, a mental health worker, relented after the usual clamoring by the news media. A funny thing happened to Donna Alexander after her Tupperware party on Monday: She became a champion for the average American. "I never dreamed what I had to say could create this kind of reaction," she said Wednesday. In her keynote speech Monday, Texas state Treasurer Ann Richards quoted ex- PI" a Bp wings, Bentsen is the other wing, and Dukakis the pilot. But Jackson will keep trying to grab the controls.

That's the problem. I think the partnership will come unglued, fjj Robert Hughes Cuyahoga County Republican chairman Campaign issues ft Rather's rear gets snapped Here are the results a poll of delegates asked to list the most important issues for fall. On the jammed convention floor Associated Press Meeting Tuesday on convention floor venna, U.S, Rep. Douglas Applegate of are state Rep. Paul Jones (left) of Ra- Steubenville and delegate June Eberts.

A little bargaining over two votes 50 28 13 13 11 11 11 Budget deficit i Drugs Trade deficit Unemployment National health care (Education Economy night, CBS News' Bob Schieffer had to be smiling. A jovial female delegate told him: "We took several pictures of Dan Rather's rpar was called. A last-minute talk with a Dukakis aide Wednesday night, however, convinced Applegate to switch his two votes to the Dukakis column. The aide prom His vote cast, sleep is in order Pete Rlzopulos of Akron cast his ballot for Michael Dukakis Wednesday night and then went straight back to the Pierre-mont Plaza, the Ohio delegation's hotel, for a full night's sleep. "I'm going to get a sandwich and go right to bed," he said.

Thursday morning, he got up early, went to a 9 a.m. breakfast hosted at the Plerremont by Ohio Treasurer Mary Ellen Wlthrow and then attended the Ohio delegation's caucus, where he heard Sen. John Glenn and Gov. Plchard F. Celeste.

A jfe The Applegate-for-president delegation marched into Atlanta for the Democratic National Convention with a single, well-defined goal. "We're going to look for a phone booth to caucus," said U.S. Rep. Douglas Applegate, the favorite-son candidate from Steubenville. Applegate, his delegate, June Eberts, and alternate, Penny Federspill, all came to Atlanta intending to cast two votes for Ohio's Applegate when the roll By the foreign policy, relations with U.S.S.R., nuclear arms 10 Defense 9 Porcentagos combine responses to two questions: Which is the most important issue and which is the second most important issue.

SOURCE: The Allanla Journal Constitution end (when he Bather bent over in the overhead anchor booth). Would you like to buy the negatives?" ised that Dukakis would work with Applegate on such tough issues as acid-rain legislation, the congressman said. Applegate has a special concern on that issue because he says the legislation could mean a loss of jobs in the coal mining industry in his area. Beacon Journal staff, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, the Knigiil-Riddor Graphics Network Dallas Morning News and The Associated Press.