NEW YORK - Vice President Dick Cheney was stepping up to denounce Democrat John Kerry's "confusion of conviction" after President Bush formally won the Republican nomination for a second term in a carefully choreographed GOP convention roll call.

The second day of the convention brought out thousands of protesters who set out on a march to the convention site, getting in the way of a busload of delegates and engaging in shouting matches with officers around Manhattan. Nearly 1,000 protesters were arrested, and on at least two occasions, police snared unruly protesters with orange plastic netting.

Cheney's speech to the Republican National Convention tonight sets the stage for Bush's own acceptance speech the following night. The president was to arrive in New York late Wednesday for a meeting with firefighters, making the Sept. 11 connection and the fight against terrorism that has defined his presidency.

Tuesday night, before a roaring audience of delegates, Bush was lauded by his wife, Laura, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man of strength and compassion.

Bush "doesn't flinch, doesn't waver, does not back down," the Austrian-born former actor said. Added Mrs. Bush: "You can count on him, especially in a crisis."

Cheney will contrast Bush's "demonstrated leadership and decisiveness versus Senator Kerry's confusion of conviction - both in foreign and domestic policy - that he's demonstrated during his 20 years in the Senate," Cheney spokeswoman Anne Womack said.

Kerry, at a late-night rally in Nashville, Tenn., belittled Bush's shifting position on whether the war on terrorism was winnable. "We can, we must and we will win the war on terror," he said.

The Massachusetts senator addresses the American Legion today, a day after Bush in a speech to the same group backed away from an earlier suggestion - made in a television interview - that the war on terror could not be won.

"It's a different type of war. We may never sit down at a peace table, but make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win," Bush told the legionnaires. Later, he told conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh he didn't really mean to have said the war against terror could not be won. "I probably needed to be more articulate," the president said.

With news on the economic front more mixed than Republicans had hoped, Cheney and keynote speaker Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., were expected to talk about Bush's agenda for creating jobs and encouraging people to own homes and start businesses.Miller said he would "explain to them why this longtime Democrat, who has never voted for a Republican, by the way, in his life, is voting for this one. And it has to do with the kind of man he is.""It has to do with the times that we live in, the very dangerous times we live in," Miller said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And it also has something to do with President Bush's opponent. And we'll talk a little bit about his record."Pennsylvania delegates put Bush over the top on Tuesday in roll call whose outcome was never in doubt. The timing was deliberate to give the honor to Pennsylvania, the battleground state that Bush has visited the most."Pennsylvania has a proud tradition of leading America," delegate Renee Amoore of Harrisburg said in pushing the president past the 1,255 votes needed for the nomination.Al Gore won Pennsylvania in 2000 by 4 percentage points but polls show a dead heat now.The president has visited the state, which has 21 electoral votes, 33 times since taking office - including a "family-style picnic" Tuesday night from which he introduced his wife to the convention by way of a satellite television hookup.Bush, in turn, had been introduced by Jenna and Barbara Bush, the first couple's 22-year-old twin daughters, who proved to be the surprise stars of the evening."Jenna and I are really not very political, but we love our dad too much to stand back and watch from the sidelines," Barbara Bush said. The twins, who were kept mostly out of sight during the 2000 presidential race, are stumping with their father and holding solo events, such as a planned address today to young Republicans.Cheney, 63, who served in the first President Bush's administration as defense secretary, has seen his approval ratings plummet amid persistent questions about his role in promoting the Iraq war and in handling the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.But Bush has stuck fast by him through the controversy.A new CNN/USA Today/Gallop poll conducted last week showed that 52 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for Democrat John Edwards for vice president over Cheney - if they could select the vice president separately.But when asked whether Cheney had given Bush good advice or bad advice over the past four years, 41 percent answered "good advice," 39 percent answered "bad advice" and 17 percent said they were unsure.Schwarzenegger called "terrorism more insidious than communism" and said Bush "knows you don't reason with terrorists. You defeat them."The former body builder and actor urged optimism about the economy and in a self-mocking quip that delighted delegates, added: "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: 'Don't be economic girlie men!'"Edwards said the administration's poor economic performance was "the big elephant in the room" that Republicans don't want to talk about."All they could do was attack. You know why? Because they don't have a plan to create jobs, to fix health care, or win the war on terror," said Edwards, who campaigned in West Virginia on Tuesday.