BOX ON IRS FORM HARDLY REPRESENTS A BOLD, NEW VISION

The Republican convention had a philosophical revolving-door quality to it. There was Pat Buchanan solving the race problem with "force, rooted in justice, backed by courage." His ultimate definition of the Republican Party is one of white male wage earners and their stay-at-home wives, who go to church every Sunday and pray for the salvation of everyone else on earth who doesn't agree with them in every "cultural" respect.

Ronald Reagan served as the Buchanan antidote. Speaking "with a smile, not a snarl," Reagan sought to include, not to exclude; to embrace, not to denounce. Ronald Reagan spoke as one who wanted to win elections; Buchanan spoke as a crusader about to embark on a take-no-prisoners campaign to purify the party on his own terms.

Then came Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm. Kemp took up where Reagan left off and pictured a free enterprise future where all Americans of all races and beliefs could share in the abundance of our nation. No one was to be excluded. Gramm produced the most tedious, most tepidly received keynote address of the television age.

As expected, Barbara Bush was warm, caring and likable. She's a "big tent" Republican. Everyone is welcome, including working women, divorced women and unmarried women of all races.

Dan Quayle, in sharpened forensics and hand gestures almost in synch with his oratory, ducked the issue of jobs and the economy. He chastised "the Hollywood and media elite" and lawyers. That's his theme for the fall campaign. That's a winner!

The focus of the entire week was President Bush's speech. In 1988, with Peggy Noonan at the pen, he hit a home run and, for practical purposes, knocked floundering Michael Dukakis out of the race. This time there was no Peggy Noonan. It was an uneven speech by committee. Richard Nixon's old presidential speech writer served as chief "cutter and paster" and Nixon got his first favorable presidential mention at a Republican Convention since 1973.

The first twenty minutes on the Bush foreign policy accomplishments served him very well. The rehash of all of his old legislative proposals including "old faithful," the capital gains tax repeal was just that a numbing rehash. His vision of the future to get America back on its economic course was a new box to be checked on the IRS income tax form and a possible tax decrease next January. He apologized for his 1990 tax increase, groaning that he had been suckered into it by that dirty Congress.

To an American family with an unemployed breadwinner, to parents with jobless high school and college graduates living at home, to workers at companies and organizations where further layoffs are in the offering, to a working mother trying to hold on to her job to all of these the Bush economic vision didn't offer much. The box on the IRS tax form didn't sound like a bold leap to recovery.

The overall thrust of the Republican convention was "family values" and keep your fingers crossed someday, somehow the economy will turn itself around. With the announcement immediately before Bush spoke that nationwide filings for first-time unemployment benefits took the biggest leap in a decade, four days of "family value" oratory and a new box on the IRS tax form didn't seem to have a sense of compelling immediacy.