http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/31/politics1533EDT0690.DTL
>...The weighty modern platform makes room for matters large and small, at
the cost of eloquence
CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
(08-31) 12:33 PDT NEW YORK (AP) --
The Republicans have a plank on just about everything. They've taken positions not only on disabled people and hunters, but specifically on disabled hunters. They found 80 different things to "applaud" in their platform, 17 to "hail" and a dozen to "commend."
Also to be found in the platform are the grand principles for which these documents are historically known.
But the platform approved at the party's convention is the longest in at least a generation, perhaps the longest ever, and packed with particulars that are ordinarily left to an undersecretary of something's speech.
At nearly 48,000 words, it comes in at more than twice the length of the Democratic platform, and puts the party on record on matters to do with Rangoon, Internet spam, "vital sea lanes of the Indian Ocean" and newfangled Wi-Fi and Wi-Max technology.
And Wi-not? Republicans say President Bush has done a lot in four years and the platform is one place to talk about them.
There are a lot of countries in the world, too, and the platform marches through a long list of them, finding some things to criticize but much to praise. "We hail the continuing cooperation of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, and other African nations in the war on terror," it says.
In their 1856 platform, for their first national convention, Republicans managed in barely 1,000 words to address the momentous issues of their time -- opposing repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opposing extension of slavery into the territories, favoring the admission of Kansas as a Free State, demanding a railroad to the Pacific and improved rivers and harbors.
The party slammed polygamy, too, calling that issue and slavery the "twin relics of barbarism."
The 1860 platform that Abraham Lincoln ran on grew a few hundred words to reflect a nation heading into civil war. It held "in abhorrence all schemes for Disunion."
"That's pretty good," said political scientist Peter Schramm, director of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University in Ohio and a former Reagan administration education official. He laments the groaning weight of the cluttered modern platforms.
"My humble opinion is, platforms ought to be general statements of principle with only limited specific policy issues discussed," he said Tuesday. "You can't be eloquent when you're writing 48,000 words."
"The bigger it gets, the fatter it gets...the more they get ignored."
The 2004 GOP platform says more about Africa than some historic platforms say about everything. It has so much to say about so many things that even subjects typically associated with Democrats are tackled with greater depth -- or at least more verbiage -- by Republicans.
The 19,500-word Democratic statement of principles, for example, makes only passing reference to homelessness, and sounds Republican in the process: "We will strengthen the role of faith-based organizations in meeting challenges like homelessness..."
Republicans sound Democratic on the subject.
"We support efforts to end chronic homelessness by providing support services and housing for chronically homeless individuals," they say, just for starters. "By taking on the toughest cases, we can bring help and hope to individuals who may feel that society long ago left them behind."
Hunters are mentioned in both party platforms. Reflecting candidate John Kerry's interest in hunting since age 12 and especially his need to get votes from a chunk of gun owners, the Democratic platform pledges to open "millions of new acres of land to public hunting and fishing."
For their part, Republicans "applaud efforts by the Bush administration to make more public lands available to hunters ... and to improve opportunities for hunting for Americans with disabilities."
Through one towering crisis after another -- world war, Depression, Cold War -- the parties stuck to basic principles and a few contemporary issues in their platforms, keeping them short but often fighting like mad over each word.
These days platform fights from the convention floor are long gone, candidates pay little attention to them once they're adopted and few people outside the parties read them.
On the Net:
The GOP platform is available at: http://www.wid.ap.org/documents/campaign2004/gop2004platform.pdf -- Michael Pugliese