Barbara Bush Hails Party’s ‘Open Doors’

NEW ORLEANS —  Barbara Bush, meeting with black and Latino groups at the Republican National Convention, said today that she’s glad “the doors of the Republican Party are wide-open.”

Praising the tone of “inclusion” set by keynote speaker Thomas H. Kean, she told the National Hispanic Assembly, “I’m enormously pleased that you have chosen to seek solutions in the company of George Bush and the GOP.”

The vice president’s wife visited a host of breakfasts hours before the roll-call vote that would give her husband the Republican presidential nomination. She also visited a combined senior citizen and day care center.

In stops at breakfast meetings of black, Latino, Jewish and elderly groups, she put in a plug for her campaign to improve literacy in America.

“George is going to lead an education revival,” she told the “Black American Salute to Barbara Bush” breakfast.

“George Bush will do everything he can to make a truly literate America, where every American can read and write,” she said. “Now, we’re counting on you to get this message out.”

At a Latino breakfast, she was introduced by Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, with one of her sons, Jeb, the state’s secretary of commerce, standing by.

She said she and her husband are interested in the problems of Hispanic-Americans, and “it’s not just because we’re linked by blood.” Jeb Bush’s wife, Columba, is Mexican-American, and they have three children.

“We share the same basic values, deep belief in family,” Barbara Bush said. She also reiterated that her husband opposes any move “to take the potentially divisive step of making English our official language.”

For that, she was given a loud ovation.

“Your political influence is only beginning to be felt,” she said.

Later, she toured Kingsley House in a poor section of the city, a day-care facility that doubles as a place for the elderly to congregate.