Platform Junkies

Democrats have fallen on Denver like so many highly opinionated Shriners. The city is ready for them, with smiling volunteers posted at every street corner. If you get directions and still look lost, any one of them would walk you to your destination.

It has a light rail system too just like the one we've all dreamed of. Zoning was once a bad word around here. Now a town that grew gas stations next to McMansions has caught and passed less environmentally hip states like, well, mine.

Not every system worked perfectly. My plane circled Denver another hour before landing. The mobbed airport was the size of Manhattan but had the feel of Ellis Island.

I hopped a bus to a baggage claim, then squeezed on a shuttle for a ninety minute ride to my rented downtown digs. I dropped into bed, exhausted. The key to all conventions is logistics. If at all possible, arrange to attend with a professional wedding planner.

At the baggage claim I had started asking conventioneers what they knew about the party platform; had they read it, did they like it, when might it be adopted. I felt like Jay Leno "Jay walking" in LA popping tough civics questions like "Who's Dick Cheney?"

The next morning I visited the breakfast of my home state delegation, Connecticut. I kept up with the platform quiz but if anybody knew anything, they were keeping mum.

Connecticut is bivouacked far out of town, by my calculation, somewhere in Wyoming. I wondered why the banishment then a one word answer flashed: Lieberman. It was our punishment for letting him be born in our state and of course, reelecting him. Fair is fair.

A political convention is a Plato's Retreat of networking. Delegates get the ball rolling each morning at these breakfasts. Chatting them up's a lot easier early in the week. What with round the clock receptions and open bars, by Wednesday morning the crowd starts to look like the cast party from Night of the Living Dead.

But even on Monday any stab at getting up a conversation about the platform was doomed.
In a sense I knew it wasn't fair. There's no platform fight. At earlier meetings of the Platform Committee -- we do have one -- Clinton delegates were placated with some health care and other language. But it was mostly about form.

Political parties once fought bitterly over platforms. Think of young Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey standing up for civil rights in 1948, or 36 year old William Jennings Bryan fighting for free silver, so that mankind "will not be crucified on a cross of gold." Or think of Viet Nam.

Now political campaigns are more like advertising campaigns. Obama's campaign has been criticized for being too thematic, but in this regard it simply extends a trend.

I take some comfort from the Republicans. Their platform has a few more specifics, nearly every one an idea that John McCain once denounced as dishonest and mean spirited. This doesn't seem to bother McCain at the moment, but if he loses he'll hate himself for how he tried to win.

On a walk this morning I passed an old church. In front were a half dozen of the faithful holding the bloodiest cross of crucifixion I'd ever seen. I asked why. A protest, one answered. Of what? The Democratic Platform, for endorsing sodomy and abortion.

Well that's one way of reading it I said. The two men bearing the cross looked like demented army rangers. They said they thought the clueless Democrats would mistake them for peace protesters. Not a chance I told them.

I smiled. At last, I thought, platform readers. It wasn't William Jennings Bryan but I thanked them for their interest.

For more Huffington Post coverage of the Democratic National Convention, visit our Politics @ the DNC page, our Democratic Convention Big News Page, and our HuffPost bloggers' Twitter feed, live from Denver.

Comments

[don]

No link to the platform in the article? Here's the Democratic Party platform:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/2008%20Democratic%20Platform%20by%20Cmte%2008-13-08.pdf



Enjoy, fellow platform junkies. The Republican platform for 2008 is only in draft form, couldn't find a link, but should come along sometime around their convention.

[messy]

What platform? Nobody has actually READ the finished document. It wasn't debated and nobody on the floor noticed it be voted on.

While channel surfing, I saw the two co-chairs (the male co-chair was a woman) make speeches that didn't even mention what was in the damn thing, and the voice vote was a half-hearted groan.

There is NO platform. Just a worthless booklet that no one's ever going to read.

[mamacat]

Fun to read your blog.
The platform? It is signifigant that there is no mention about gun control. The Dems know they can't do anything with that, so why bother trying. It would only cost them votes. Its not like civil rights or birth control, or the never ending wars. Besides, does anyone know what the right way to reduce gun violence really involves?

I'm not sure that McCain is capable of hating himself. After all the things in his life that he has messed up, why should he suddenly grow a conscience? Nope, I don't buy that idea. IF he loses, he is more likely to hate himself because he didn't not flip-flop enough, not because he did it indiscriminately.

As for those guys dressed up like Rangers holding a bloody cross, why aren't they protesting the dead comrades the GOP sent to die for a lie? Our leaders always have to make tough decisions. That goes with the job. But the White House should never lead us to war based on what they know is bad information. And by the way, when is McCain going to admit the war is a mistake? He's so focused on saying that the surge worked, that he forgets that the war never should have been started in the first place. What's the point of beating an enemy into submission who you never should have attacked in the first place?

[karronna]

ummm....le­t's see.

walk softly but carry a big stick?
Universal affordable health care.
Unrestricted rights to contraception and the continuance of decriminalized abortion
Tax cuts for the middle class
A strong commitment to protecting the environment and to stop global warming
expanded efforts to strengthen our educational system

Come on....don'­t tell me nobody knows...

[Chillinout]

"but if he loses he'll hate himself for how he tried to win"

Truer words were never spoken.

[23000Days]

Bill, the lack of comments here supports your argument. I think the party has done too little to make the platform known to the general public.