When Rep. Henry Hyde called on Republican delegates to ratify the party’s national campaign blueprint Monday, the veteran congressman hailed it as “Bob Dole’s platform.”
The only problem is, the Republican presidential contender has said he hasn’t read the document and isn’t going to be bound by it.
That underscores the actual significance of the 107 pages of ideology contained in the platform, which ostensibly is the GOP’s staunchly conservative message to the nation’s voters.
The bitterly debated plank on individual rights, for instance, calls for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. A section seeking “tolerance” for Republicans with dissenting views was belatedly tacked on as an appendix to mollify abortion-rights supporters.
Despite weeks of high-profile debate over the platform’s strong opposition to abortion, the document was approved on a boisterous voice vote of delegates on the convention’s opening day.
Hyde, the Wood Dale Republican who chaired the Platform Committee and fought off efforts by the Dole camp to insert stronger tolerance language on abortion, received a standing ovation.
With unity a central theme of the convention, the platform’s adoption gave no specific recognition to abortion-rights supporters, and three governors who support abortion rights have lost their convention speaking roles.
The platform also would deny automatic citizenship to children born in America to illegal immigrants and would designate English as the nation’s common language.
Another plank embraces Dole’s economic package of tax cuts, and others propose abolishing four Cabinet-level agencies and ending government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Apparently recognizing Democrats’ diverse attitudes toward abortion, President Clinton’s campaign seized instead on the GOP’s immigration plank as a symbol of what it called the Republican platform’s extremist views.
Despite Dole’s limited success in shaping the platform, the decision to allow conservatives to lead the writing of the document could help rally right-wing activists. At the same time, moderate voters aren’t likely to hear much about the platform for the rest of the campaign.
Still, that the platform remains a source of party squabbling has left some Republicans questioning its value.
“My opinion of platforms is they are an unfortunate part of our national convention that, I think, we waste a lot of effort over and are usually forgotten as soon as we leave,” Gov. Jim Edgar said.
That did not sit well with Hyde.
Informed that moderates Edgar and former Gov. James R. Thompson, who support abortion rights, considered the platform as too far to the Right, Hyde responded: “I think they’re dead wrong.
“They’re pro-choice, wonderful; they’re welcome in the party, they’re leaders in the party,” Hyde said. “I’m pro-life. There isn’t much room in the Democratic Party for pro-life people.”
