GOP Adopts Platform
NEW YORK, August 30, 2004 (AP) - Republicans adopted a platform Monday that
rallies behind President Bush's agenda while edging the GOP's
social principles further to the right.
The platform puts the party on record - although not necessarily
on course - behind a constitutional ban on gay marriage and
reaffirms the GOP's position that abortion should be outlawed in
the Constitution as well.
Those issues were flash points in a pre-convention debate
between conservatives and moderates. Republicans eventually settled
with language that backs the line sought by the right while
declaring that the party respects dissenters in its ranks.
"Our platform highlights the principles that unite our party,"
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, platform chairman, told the
opening day of the Republican convention. "We stand squarely,
fully and firmly with President George. W. Bush in a time of
profound national and historic consequence."
The platform's title reflects the theme of the week: "A Safer
World, a More Hopeful America." Delegates adopted it with a roar
of approval in a voice vote, with scattered nays.
The rules in both parties make it extremely difficult to
challenge the platform from the convention floor.
Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee,
called the GOP platform an "extremist, special interest document"
at odds with the views of the moderate speakers the Republicans are
highlighting at their convention.
"So if you really want to know what George Bush and Dick Cheney
stand for and what they intend to do over the next four years," he
advised TV viewers, "turn down the volume and read the platform."
Nothing binds Bush or any Republican candidate to the platform.
Even so, the Bush campaign and party leaders worked to make sure
the religious conservatives who are a key part of the GOP's base
did not move the statement of principles out of the president's
comfort zone as he campaigns for moderate and swing voters.
The platform committee turned aside an effort, for example, to
have the party oppose all research using embryonic stem cells. The
party stuck with language supporting Bush's restrictions that allow
federal money to be spent only for research using pre-existing
embryonic stem cell lines.
And in a campaign where Democrats and Republicans are competing
hard for Hispanic votes, the convention adopted a platform that
extends a welcoming tone to legal immigrants and supports Bush's
proposal to grant temporary legal status to millions of illegal
aliens with needed job skills. Conservatives failed to make
substantive changes in that policy.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
» Huge Potests
