A few weeks ago, the New York Times had an interesting item about party platforms.
True, few voters actually read party platforms, which are intended to be statements of the party’s positions and proposals. And who can blame them? The documents — often leaden, homogenized and full of generic campaign-speak — can send even the most ardent political observer into the deepest of slumbers.
But an analysis of both parties’ platforms since 1960 suggests that their length and content can be remarkably helpful in gauging a party’s health and, in the end, its chances of electoral success.
As a poli sci geek, I happen to love platforms and agree that, particularly in retrospect, they can be helpful in capturing the mood and prospects of a party.
It’s also why I can’t help but be amused by the Republicans’ desire not to have anyone read this year’s GOP platform, even other Republicans.
With the Republican National Convention’s platform committee convening in New York less than three weeks from now, no draft platform exists, no subcommittees have been named, and no special lodging for committee members has been assigned. Rather than signifying sudden collapse of accustomed Republican efficiency, all this looks more like a coolly calculated plan.
The suspicion has grown that President Bush’s re-election strategists — Karl Rove and Karen Hughes — do not want the open debate over principles and policy that has characterized Republican platform-making for a generation. The carefully guarded Bush campaign game plan is to present delegates on the platform committee with an unpleasant surprise when they arrive in New York: a trimmed down document with virtually no time to debate it.
In recent cycles, the GOP has had to endure semi-public debate over specific details of the platform, as rank-and-file Republicans demanded stronger and more conservative language than the party was prepared to publish. This year, the party decided the wisest course of action was to simply shut everyone out altogether.
[Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s chairmanship] has been notable for what has not happened: no outreach to interest groups in the broad Republican coalition, no subcommittees appointed and, most significantly, no draft platform prepared for committee action.
So not only will the convention speakers be a Potemkin village of moderates, Bush will effectively be running on a party platform he doesn’t want anyone to read.
What the Bush campaign seems to be building is what one veteran GOP operative told us is “the antithesis of traditional Republican platforms. After all, when you’re proud of your positions, and confident of their rightness, you want to explain them. When you’re afraid to talk about them, well . . .”