By Emily Pierce
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 13

Delegates: 54

Chairman: TBD (Sen. Paul Coverdell died July 18)

Hotel: Marriott (215) 625-2900

1996 Election:
Dole – 47%
Clinton – 46%
Perot – 16%

Georgia's delegation to the national convention in Philadelphia may be one of the best examples of a state party mending the cracks between its Christian conservative contingent and the party establishment.

"The state party is more united than it has been in well over a decade," said state party Chairman Chuck Clay. "A lot of the convulsiveness and growing pains . . . of moderates versus conservatives are gone."

It's a feat many Georgia party activists credit to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, whose campaign organization was able to do what his father, George Bush, could not - unite state GOP factions before they had a chance to splinter.

Nowhere was the Georgia Republican Party's fractiousness more apparent than at the 1988 New Orleans convention that nominated the elder Bush for president for the first time.

That year, supporters of conservative religious broadcaster Pat Robertson led a coup at the Georgia Republican convention and voted themselves many of the state's delegate slots - even though then-Vice President Bush had taken the winner-take-all primary with 54 percent to third-place finisher Robertson's 16 percent.

The state party's central committee invalidated the state convention results and hand-picked a delegation skewed toward Bush. As a result, two competing Georgia delegations prepared to head for New Orleans. A compromise had to be worked out by the Republicans' Credentials Committee the week before the convention, with many of the Robertsonites ending up with delegate seats.

The schism between Georgia's movement conservatives and pragmatic Republican activists persisted in a less visible way at the 1992 and 1996 conventions.

But this year, the party was able to approve the roster of delegates by voice vote and had one of the most harmonious state conventions "in recent memory," said Clay, who is going as a Bush delegate.

Alternate delegate Linda Parker, who is party chairman in suburban Atlanta's Cherokee County, said Bush's campaign went out of its way to meet with social conservatives from groups such as the Christian Coalition and the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee to ensure that they would be represented in the delegation.

Yet some social issue activists remain on guard. Sadie Fields, a delegate and director of the Georgia Christian Coalition, said in June that she had no reason to doubt Bush's word on keeping the party's anti-abortion platform plank intact. But she implied that social conservatives would be on the lookout for any platform changes and for any effort to choose a vice presidential nominee with a less than stellar anti-abortion record.

"We want to make sure that things stay as they have been," she said.

Besides reaching out across the ideological spectrum, Bush Georgia campaign Chairman Eric Tanenblatt said extra efforts were made to enlist delegates who were supporters of Bush's primary rivals. They include party veteran Oscar Persons, who was Georgia campaign chairman for Elizabeth Dole, the former Reagan and Bush Cabinet member and wife of 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole.

Ex-backers of Arizona Sen. John McCain and publishing magnate Steve Forbes are also represented, Tanenblatt said.

The Georgia delegation's celebratory mood was dampened by the death July 18 of U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, who had been named delegation chairman.

The delegation includes five African-Americans, said Teresa Jeter Chapell, Bush's "coalitions director" for Georgia, whose husband, William Chapell, is one of those delegates.

So is former White House and congressional aide Dylan Glenn, who is challenging African-American Democratic Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. in the 2nd Congressional District this year. Glenn said Bush's efforts to reach out to minority constituencies could help both of them win in November.

"In the past, Republican candidates . . . haven't been nearly as aggressive as [Bush] has in carrying their message to the [African-American] community," he said.

The most notable difference in this year's Georgia Republican delegation compared with those of recent past conventions is the disappearance of Newt Gingrich from the national political scene.

In 1996, Gingrich - who represented Georgia's 6th District - was still enjoying plaudits for orchestrating the 1994 Republican upsurge that gave the party its first House majority in 40 years and made Gingrich himself Speaker. But incremental Republican setbacks in the 1996 and 1998 House elections provoked Gingrich not only to step down as Speaker at the end of 1998 but to resign from the House altogether.

In one of the most striking examples of the swinging door between government and the media, Gingrich will be in Philadelphia for this year's convention - as a Fox News analyst.

GEORGIA NOTABLES: Georgia Republican Party Chairman Chuck Clay; Bush Georgia Campaign Chairman Eric Tanenblatt; Republican National Committee Treasurer Alec Poitevint; Georgia Christian Coalition Director Sadie Fields; 2nd Congressional District Republican candidate Dylan Glenn; state School Superintendent Linda Schrenko.