US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTONS: Donors move in for the corporate killing

San Diego Diary

Forget Ronald and Nancy Reagan, even the 73-year-old nominee Bob Dole. The real Golden Oldie corner in this sanitized television infomercial that is the 1996 Republican convention is the South Carolina delegation, where the state's senior Senator Strom Thurmond is working the floor for votes. At the tender age of 93, Old Strom is seeking an eighth term this November. If he completes it, he will be the first centenarian to sit in the Senate in US history.

"Naas tuh seeya," the wizened, beady-eyed figure tells admirers as he shuffles around the aisles, his gnarled hand gripping the arm of an aide. Thurmond knows the ropes of these

occasions - he ran for President himself back in 1948 (when Dole was a young lad of 25) as candidate of the pro-segregation States' Rights movement. This time, though, he loved the Colin Powell speech. How come, wonders a young black delegate. "Aah've changed," grinned Old Strom.

Rather like the Olympic Games, or Wimbledon, the Republican National Convention affords big corporations the opportunity to entertain VIP guests. And very valued guests they are too, these politicians. How they vote in Congress can determine whether a company saves or loses a few million in taxes. Of course, most of the cocktails/dinner parties/boat-cruises are sponsored by banks, tobacco companies or pharmaceutical giants that have already donated big money to Republican election candidates. So these are chiefly exercises, mutually beneficial, in friendship consolidation.

No company has been more friendly, it would appear, towards the Dole campaign than Caterpillar Solar Turbines, a local San Diego company. On the opening morning of the convention, the president of the company was granted the rare honour of addressing the delegates, and the rare privilege of having his company logo temporarily affixed to the microphone stand. Mr Dole stood to the Caterpillar president's right. Behind them, a metallic silver turbine served as a stage prop.

The governor of California, Pete Wilson, had been denied the chance to address the convention because of his support for a woman's right to choose whether she has an abortion. But here was the president of Caterpillar, who began: "We are the finest American company in America's finest city. We have about 9,600 units ... " Mr Dole smiled and clapped his hands.

None of the conventioneers appeared to find anything odd or disturbing in this. For, so far, the convention has proved to be a masterly display of orchestrated party harmony. In fact, the organisation has been, at every level, breathtakingly efficient.

This goes also for the demonstrations outside the vast convention building. Each is arranged according to a minutely accurate timetable. Each takes place in the same car park, a place known as the "Protest Zone". Thus the calendar of extra-curricular events, as provided by the National Journal Convention Daily, revealed on Monday, for example, that from 3.10 to 4.05pm: "Handgun Control Inc. demonstration at Protest Zone; 4.20-5.15 pm, American Lung Association demonstration at Protest Zone; 5.30-6pm, the Coalition for Social and Economic Justice holds demonstration at Protest Zone; 6.40- 9pm Lesbian and Gay Rights rally at Protest Zone." And so on, every day. Even more remarkable is the fact that a couple of brief sallies by intrepid Independent reportersinto the Zone revealed that the assorted placard- bearers and screamers were all keeping religiously to their agreed schedules.