Thurston Howell Types Won't Help the GOP in N.Y.

Volunteers for the GOP convention will again be gathering on the second floor of the Farley Building on 32nd Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues today and tomorrow.

They will be painting signs to be held up on the convention floor next month. The goal is 25,000 signs, and I went there last Saturday to offer my puny efforts toward this target.

There were about 100 people in the huge loft area, most of them quite young. A pleasant young man named Evan set me up at a table with paint supplies and blank posters.

Samples of posters were hung around the room for us to copy. We could also create original ones, and I painted "Staten Island loves GWB" in red and blue poster paint.

After I'd been there an hour, one of the crew leaders announced we would be getting a visit from Bill Harris, the CEO of the 2004 GOP Convention Committee, and other visitors from Washington.

This was totally unexpected. When the contingent of VIPs came in to thank the volunteers for their work and shake hands, I took the opportunity to tell Mr. Harris that I had been trying for months to arrange an interview but hadn't been able to break through his protective shield of press secretaries.

He smiled but said nothing and I think he must have thought I was a bit of a flake.The Yankee cap I wore and my paint-stained T-shirt did little to discourage this assumption.

As the organizers arranged for photos of the volunteers and their finished posters with the committee members and the visiting White House staffers, I stood back and looked critically at the group, playing devil's advocate.

There were no women or minority members in that entourage. One very handsome man stood quietly in his blue blazer and tan slacks looking as if he'd just come from watching a polo match. Veddy, veddy Republican, indeed, but a tad dull.

The volunteers, on the other hand, were the best representatives of this city, coming in all different colors, sizes, and economic brackets. I couldn't help but consider the recent brouhaha about President Bush turning down an invitation to speak at the NAACP.

One African-American caller to a talk show said that this was the wrong thing for Mr. Bush to do. If he had showed up, the black community would have considered Mr. Bush brave for entering a hostile arena.

I asked the director of the Congress of Racial Equality, Niger Innis, for his opinion and he countered by asking if Senator Kerry was scheduled to speak 257 1171 389 1182at an NRA rally.

He also affirmed that CORE has always had easy access to the president and Mr. Bush has always accepted his invitations.

I agree, and think the president is correct in choosing to speak to the black community through organizations that are truly nonpartisan and not merely wings of the Democratic Party.

Still, if the GOP is sincerely trying to make inroads into the minority vote here, it needs to provide better access to New Yorkers who can help broaden its appeal. The Republican platform has real appeal to these communities with school vouchers, lower taxes, and strong family values, but Thurston Howell types do not make effective messengers.

I grant you that Mr. Harris is a very important man, but I submit that he is not a New Yorker. The man who is doing the best job at preparing the liberal city for this invasion by a rival party is a Democrat - Ed Koch. Another enthusiastic Bush supporter is, oh my, Don King. Now if we could only get Tina Turner to sing "Simply the Best" at the convention, we'd really have a swinging time.

I'm just kidding, folks, but Bruce Springsteen is planning his concert to deliberately conflict with the convention. Country music may be big in Texas, but New Yorkers' taste tends more toward the eclectic.

On a more serious note, we mustn't forget that 250,000 protesters are trying to secure a permit in Central Park where they can mount their demonstrations.

These protesters are extremely well organized. These are the same leftist groups who conduct anti-capitalist rallies around the world and disrupt global conferences. They are rarely peaceful no matter what they name themselves.

They are also well funded by tycoons like billionaire George Soros, who has pledged huge amounts of money to try to remove Mr. Bush from the White House.

Fortunately, help is on the way, even if the 2004 GOP committee isn't asking for any. A group of dedicated young people, lovers of true intellectual freedom, have formed a group called Protest Warriors.

They plan to take on the protesters with the truth.

The New York chapter of the warriors inaugurated Operation Bias Check, which managed to crash the "Today" show's outdoor show with signs reading, "Don't believe the liberal media."

That they had to disguise their signs under an innocuous birthday greeting speaks volumes about the lengths the networks go to silence the conservative right.

I went to their Web site, www.protestwarrior.com, which claims it was "created to arm the liberty-loving Silent Majority with ammo to strike at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left."

Shazam! This could be a very exciting convention.