The 2000 Republican National Convention convened at the First Union Center (now the Wells Fargo Center) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 31 to August 3, 2000. The 2000 delegates assembled at the convention nominated Texas Governor George W. Bush for president and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard B. "Dick" Cheney for vice president. Political context Bush, eldest son of the 41st president, was identified early as the party establishment's frontrunner and turned back a strong primary challenge from John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and U.S. Senator from Arizona. At the convention, the party and campaign sought to showcase Bush's slogan of compassionate conservatism to persuade undecided voters. Roll call vote Instead of holding the roll call of states on one night, the Bush campaign arranged for the voting to take place over four nights, so that Bush would eventually build up support throughout the week, culminating with Cheney's home state of Wyoming finally putting him over the top on the final night. There were few defections, despite a large contingent of delegates having been elected to support McCain, who formally released them to Bush. The convention then voted by acclamation to make the convention nomination unanimous. Cheney's nomination as vice president had also been approved by acclamation on Wednesday night, so Cheney could address the convention later that night as the official nominee. Cheney's acceptance speech Cheney's convention address was the first to include sustained attacks on Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee -- whereas most of the speakers who came before him criticized the vice president only briefly, or without mentioning his name. (This was part of the Bush campaign's strategy to "change the tone" in national politics by moving beyond the division and bitterness of recent partisan discourse.) Cheney, however, was given latitude to lob various direct attacks on Clinton and Gore, and even reprised a line that Gore had used in his 1992 convention address attacking the first President Bush: "It is time for them to go." This was the first vice-presidential acceptance speech in recent memory to be held the night before the presidential nominee's address. The standard practice at the time was for both nominees to give their speeches the same night. Cheney's speech began a tradition of vice-presidential nominees headlining their own night at the convention; two weeks later, at the Democratic convention, that party's vice-presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, also