NYT: Republican Platform Takes Turn
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Platform's Sharp Turn to Right Has Conservatives Cheering
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Republicans in Tampa, Fla., adopted a
platform more conservative than that
passed at the start of the Reagan era.
2 more images
By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: August 29, 2012
One party platform stated that Hispanics and others should not "be barred from education or
employment opportunities because English is not their first language." It highlighted the
need for "dependable and affordable" mass transit in cities, noting that "mass transportation
offers the prospect for significant energy conservation." And it prefaced its plank on abortion
by saying that "we recognize differing views on this question among Americans in general and in our own party."
The other party platform said that "we support English as the nation's official language." It
chided the Democratic administration for "replacing civil engineering with social engineering
as it pursues an exclusively urban vision of dense housing and government transit." And its
abortion plank recognized no dissent, taking the position that "the unborn child has a
fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed."
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NYT: Republican Platform Takes Turn
No, they are not the platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties. They are both
Republican platforms: the first from 1980, at the dawn of the Reagan revolution, and the
second the 2012 Republican platform that was approved on Tuesday afternoon in Tampa, Fla.
The new platform - with its call to reshape Medicare to give fixed amounts of money to future
beneficiaries so they can buy their own coverage, its tough stance on illegal immigration and
its many calls to shrink the size and scope of government - shows just how far rightward the
party has shifted in both tone and substance in the decades since it adopted the 1980
platform, which was considered a triumph for conservatives at the time.
Subtitled "We Believe in America," the platform keeps its focus on the party's traditional
support for low taxes, national security and social conservatism. And it delves into a number
of politically charged issues. It calls state court decisions recognizing same-sex marriage "an
assault on the foundations of our society," opposes gun legislation that would limit "the
capacity of clips or magazines," supports the "public display of the Ten Commandments,"
calls on the federal government to drop its lawsuits challenging state laws adopted to combat
illegal immigration, and salutes the Republican governors and lawmakers who "saved their
states from fiscal disaster by reforming their laws governing public employee unions."
Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, the chairman of the party's platform committee, described it
as "a conservative vision of governance" in his speech at the convention.
Platforms are often mocked as unread and unimportant. Both parties have seen their
platforms shaped over the years by special-interest groups, or in the hopes of appealing to
single-issue voters, in ways that appealed to their bases but at times took them outside
mainstream political opinion.
Mitt Romney, like most recent Republican nominees, has noted that he supports certain
exceptions to his party's proposed sweeping ban on abortion: he told CBS News that he favors
exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the health or life of the mother is endangered.
And this week the House speaker, John A. Boehner, pointedly asked, "Have you ever met
anybody who has read the party platform?"
But some political scientists say that party platforms do matter. Gerald M. Pomper, a
professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University, studied meaningful platform
pledges from 1944 to 1976 - and later updated his work by looking at the 1990s - and found
that winning political parties try to redeem roughly 70 percent of their concrete platform
pledges. Mr. Pomper said his work found that contrary to popular belief, party platforms
should not be casually dismissed as meaningless.
"It seemed strange to me that people would have fights over platforms and would put in a lot
of effort to try to influence them if they didn't mean anything," he said in an interview. "If
they didn't, why were practical people fighting over this? Putting something into the party
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NYT: Republican Platform Takes Turn
platform is a pledge that you're going to do something about it."
Several prominent conservatives and conservative groups praised the new platform.
FreedomWorks, an advocacy group associated with the Tea Party movement, applauded the
Republican Party for adopting much of what it called "the Tea Party's 'Freedom Platform.' "
Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime conservative icon, wrote in The Washington Times that this year's
Republican platform "may be the best one ever adopted." And the platform's gun-rights
section - which included the party's support for "the fundamental right to self-defense
wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be" - drew strong praise from the National
Rifle Association.
David Keene, president of the association, said on the group's Web site that "the 2008
platform of the Republican Party was perhaps the most gun-friendly platform that any party
had ever adopted, and I'm happy to be able to report that this year's Republican platform is
even stronger in terms of dedicating a major party to the protection of the Second
Amendment."
This year's Republican platform contains several planks that were sought by supporters of
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, whose insurgent Republican presidential campaign
energized a new generation of libertarians. It calls for an annual audit of the Federal Reserve,
and for forming a commission to "investigate possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar"
along the lines of a commission that was established three decades ago to study - and wound
up opposing - a return to the gold standard.
The proposal to reshape Medicare, as Mr. Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul
D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have proposed, is now enshrined in the party platform.
Their plan would change the program for those under 55 so that they would receive a fixed
amount of money to purchase health coverage from private insurers, or a traditional
Medicare plan. "While retaining the option of traditional Medicare in competition with
private plans, we call for a transition to a premium-support model for Medicare, with an
income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee's choice," that platform
states.
The platform also suggests raising the age at which people can receive Medicare. "Without
disadvantaging retirees or those nearing retirement, the age eligibility for Medicare must be
made more realistic in terms of today's longer life span," it says.
President Obama and his policies are critiqued at length in the platform, which calls for
repealing his health care law and criticizes his administration for leaking details of the
operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
"We give the current president credit for maintaining his predecessor's quiet determination
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NYT: Republican Platform Takes Turn
and planning to bring to justice the man behind the 9/11 attack on America, but he has
tolerated publicizing the details of the operation to kill the leader of Al Qaeda," the platform
reads.
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NYT: Republican Platform Takes Turn
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