The criticism from the left may ring hollow to voters, because Kerry played a similar hide-my-ideology game at his nominating convention. The rare mention of abortion rights, gay rights and gun control was kept away from prime-time in Boston, where the focus was on Kerry's combat record in Vietnam, not his liberal votes in the Senate.

There's no secret why both parties play it this way: Exit polls show that half of all voters identify themselves as moderate. While only a fraction of them are still choosing between Bush and Kerry, the race is close enough to assume that a few thousand moderate voters in a few states could determine the outcome.

After defeating Gore in the tightest presidential election in modern times, Bush examined the political landscape, saw it polarized and decided the first thing he needed to do was cement his political base. He courted conservatives by imposing restrictions on federally funded abortions, slashed taxes for the wealthy and scuttled the global warming treaty.

He restricted embryonic stem cell research.

He backed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

He listened carefully to conservative ideologues who wanted to invade Iraq as part of greater plan to plant the seed of democracy in the Middle East.

Though he kept faith with his compassionate conservative agenda by pushing bipartisan education changes ("No Child Left Behind") and sought to get religious groups involved in federally funded community services ("Armies of Compassion), liberals complained that he didn't fund the first initiative and helped few people with the second.

In the runup to the convention, some Democrats saw politics behind Vice President Dick Cheney's decision to distance himself from Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Cheney, who has a gay daughter, said, "Freedom means freedom for everyone" when asked about his stand on gay marriage.

Sig Rogich, a Republican strategist from Nevada, said Bush has learned a lesson from his father, whose 1992 convention took a turn to the right when Buchanan said America faced a cultural war.

"There's a great deal to convention management," Rogich said. "I don't think we hit the mark in 1992. We won't have that problem this time."