ARNOLD'S PLAIN SPEAKING A `BREATH OF FRESH AIR'.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

The fete at New York's Madison Square Garden was, to be sure, George W. Bush's bash. He gave the rousing grand-finale speech, and he was the recipient of the obligatory confetti shower. But for a short while, it looked as though a certain other speaker might steal the show: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For anyone listening to the Governator's address Tuesday night, it was hard not to hear echoes of the Gipper. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Schwarzenegger won over the in-house crowd and many of the home viewers, too, by speaking plainly and unapologetically - in a way so few politicians can.

The most telling line in Schwarzenegger's address came, ironically, not in his impassioned plea for ``four more years'' of Bush in the White House, or even his patriotic salute to American exceptionalism. It came in his recollection of the 1968 presidential campaign, shortly after he'd immigrated to the U.S., and his admission that the man who led him to the Republican Party was - of all people - Richard Nixon.

``Listening to Nixon speak,'' Schwarzenegger enthused, ``sounded more like a breath of fresh air.''

The remark had to have given ulcers to the GOP's pollsters and consultants. What kind of politician invokes the name of one of America's most reviled and disgraced ex-presidents?

The kind willing to share heartfelt memories without censoring them in the light of hindsight or on the basis of polling data. The kind who has the confidence to just be himself - and the personality to pull it off. And the kind who's not cowed by the dictums of political correctness or the sensibilities of the elite media.

So it is with Schwarzenegger. He tells it like it is, even if that means breaking the hypocritical, self-imposed rules of modern political discourse.

Two months ago, Schwarzenegger came under fire for teasingly calling Sacramento Democrats ``girlie-men,'' prompting the predicable howls and accusations - Divisive! Sexist! Homophobic! - from the ranks of the perpetually offended. It was the sort of outcry that sends most poll-wary politicians to dash off apologies and plead for forgiveness. But not Arnold.

At the convention, Arnold used the line again: ``To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say, don't be economic girlie-men!'' And with that, he stuck his oversized thumb square in the eyes of the thin-skinned and the humorless.

The crowd loved it.

Yet the crowd loved even more his unabashed brand of patriotism. In stark contrast to the Democratic message of ``two Americas,'' where the have-nots toil forever in the shadows of the haves, Schwarzenegger described the country as a place where ``if you work hard and play by the rules ... you can achieve anything.'' It was a genuine message of optimism and hope - one for which he is the living proof.

He described America as ``the lamp lighting the world, especially for those who struggle,'' and said it ``remains the great idea that inspires the world.'' You don't hear talk like that at a Democratic convention, and even a good number of Republicans are reluctant to speak in such glowing terms about their country. It's not because of a lack of patriotism, but a false sense of national humility, a wrongheaded thinking that equates honest appeals to America's goodness and its ideals as jingoistic or insensitive to other nations.

Yet Schwarzenegger, an immigrant who has lived under the fear of tyranny and the stifling yoke of socialism, has an appreciation for American freedom and its liberating foreign policy that's too easily lost on native-born Americans. And so when he says America ``fights not for imperialism but for human rights and democracy,'' he speaks not from a sense of national chauvinism, but a frank and grateful assessment of the last century.

At a time when many Americans are tired of having to apologize for their sacrifice and leadership in the War on Terror, Arnold's candor comes as the ``breath of fresh air'' that Nixon's appeals to free enterprise were for him 36 years ago.

And if Schwarzenegger's address was unabashedly patriotic, it was also unabashedly Republican. This was his first foray into a truly partisan setting, and Schwarzenegger - the governor with a well-honed bipartisan appeal - could have tried to downplay the differences between the parties or conceal his own conservatism on matters of foreign and economic policy.

But it's not like Arnold to be anything other than himself, and in this case, perhaps there was no need for him even to try. As the husband and friend of Democrats, he could be partisan without coming across as nasty, or sounding as though he thinks anyone who disagrees must be evil. The most rousing part of his speech, not only for the party faithful, but for anyone other than committed Democrats, came when he riffed on what makes someone a Republican: ``If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does, then you are a Republican! ... If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope of democracy in the world, then you are a Republican!''

It was a more eloquent, simple statement on what the GOP stands for than anyone has been able to muster since Reagan, who also knew how to tweak the other party with a joke or a pointed observation, but always with a smile, and never hitting below the belt. It was Reagan who once made a compelling case for a less onerous government, and spoke unashamedly about a country that remained a ``city on the hill.''

Almost three months after America laid President Reagan to rest, Schwarzenegger was able to bring his legacy to the convention in a way that, like Reagan 16 years earlier, just might make the difference in a national campaign for a man named Bush.

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(color) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a simple, eloquent speech to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.

Ed Reinke/Associated Press