GOP Platform

The platform that the GOP adopted at its convention in Tampa is startling! It includes a no exception ban on all abortions. It defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. As I expected, this is an agenda that caters to the extreme right-wing of the party and will likely offend its moderates.
by Charlie Leck

Well, the Republicans have gone and done it. They reshaped themselves into a party of far right-wingers, moving themselves dramatically away from the moderate center of American politics. So, what of it!

Here is one of  planks of the platform adopted by the GOP
at its national convention, regarding hunting out liberal bias in our colleges and universities.

“Ideological bias is deeply entrenched within the current university system. Whatever the solution in private institutions may be, in State institutions the trustees have a responsibility to the public to ensure that their enormous investment is not abused for political indoctrination. We call on State officials to ensure that our public colleges and universities be places of learning and the exchange of ideas,not zones of intellectual intolerance favoring the Left.”

Amazing! Simply amazing!

I believe (perhaps it is blind hope) that women and seniors will carry the day for President Obama this year. They’ll reject this hopeless and radical conservatism.

Give this Republican convention a week to settle down. Once the dust clears, the analysis will begin and the public will see just how far to the right the GOP has drifted. Republicans will win the hard South and the prairie states with no trouble. They’ll have trouble everywhere else. Their hard-right platform may have cost them states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

And explain to me what this GOP plank, about technology and ideology is trying to say.

““Liberty alone fosters scientific inquiry, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and information exchange. Liberty must remain the core energy behind America’s environmental improvement.”

Okay!

Of course, I can’t forget that the GOP will spend hundreds of millions of dollars of Super PAC money in the next two months. We’ll see some of the most horrendous ads known to politics and they’ll turn many a stomach with their lies and misleading statements. That’s politics in 2012, even if we don’t like it.

Obama will begin answering these critics next week at the Democratic convention and in his own ad campaign that will begin the day the Democrats recess. How he spends his money will be vital; for he won’t have the amounts with which the rich GOP will get to play. Obama will need to depend on the American people sorting out truth from fiction. All of those who believe in him will have to give money to the campaign to the point that it actually hurts. We’ve no choice! We're up against people like the Koch brothers.

Then there is this plank about the minimum wage in the pacific territories, which is more truthfully a statement about the GOP and the minimum wage in the states.

“The Pacific territories should have flexibility to determine the minimum wage, which has seriously restricted progress in the private sector.”

In the NY Times on 29 August (Wednesday) an interesting article compares the GOP platform from the 1980 convention (which endorsed Ronald Reagan) to the platform of this year. It’s remarkable to see how far to the right the party has consistently drifted. Take a look at the comparison chart here! Or you can read the entire article (Platform’s Sharp Turn to the Right Leaves Conservatives Cheering!).

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