Democratic Policy Finds a Happy Medium

Democratic Party stalwarts intent on producing a party platform with broad appeal turned aside one effort after another on Saturday to move the presidential campaign document -- and the party -- leftward.

Sixteen days before the party convenes in Boston, the platform committee approved a document that walked away from proposed language calling the war in Iraq a mistake and seeking a specific date for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The minimal debate demonstrated the degree to which the party machinery was firmly in the grasp of the highly organized and motivated forces behind Sen. John F. Kerry’s presidential campaign.

At a daylong meeting in the heart of south Florida’s Democratic enclave, the platform committee completed a 35-page statement with two overarching goals: to set out specific policy positions on the breadth of issues facing the country; and, perhaps more important, to set a tone that meshed with the tenor of the Kerry campaign.

Terry McAuliffe, the party chairman, said the platform “offers an optimistic vision for a strong economy ... a strong nation.”

The party leaders sought to emerge from the Westin Diplomat hotel with a document that could roll across the country without costing support in either the nation’s solidly Democratic corners or among swing voters in heartland battleground states.

They began the day facing 207 amendments to a draft platform completed a week ago. Nearly every amendment was withdrawn or incorporated using modified language accepted by Kerry’s representatives and by other party leaders. For example, a proposal to denounce key elements of the Patriot Act, the controversial Bush administration tool to combat terrorism, was turned back.

In what McAuliffe portrayed as a dramatic shift from past party platforms, nearly half of the document deals with matters related to foreign policy. National security issues usually take up no more than about 20% of the statement, he said.

The party avoided a potential split over Iraq between Kerry and his one remaining competitor for the presidential nomination, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, whose campaign rests on his strident opposition to the war.

During a night of negotiations that stretched nearly to dawn on Saturday, the Kucinich team stepped back from its insistence that the platform call the war in Iraq a mistake and demand that a date be set for the departure of all U.S. troops. Rather, the platform emphasizes the importance of bringing more nations into the coalition in Iraq to reduce the need for U.S. troops -- a long-held Kerry position.

“As other nations, including Islamic nations, contribute troops, the U.S. will be able to reduce its military presence in Iraq, and we intend to do this when appropriate so that the military support needed by a sovereign Iraqi government will no longer be seen as the direct continuation of an American military presence,” a platform addition stated.

John Sherman of Minnesota, one of Kucinich’s two representatives among the 186 members of the platform committee, made the best of the agreement, saying, “I came here expecting nothing.... This language isn’t what I want. I want us out [of Iraq] yesterday. But it is so much better than where we were.”

Rand Beers, Kerry’s advisor on national security matters, said: “We shouldn’t be in Iraq longer than we have to. But when we leave, we shouldn’t do it in a way that leaves chaos and catastrophe in our wake.”

Platforms are historically documents that, regardless of the fights attached to their writing, are usually forgotten by all but ideologues and interest groups.

As general as the platform is -- one of the three leaders of the committee, Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, called it “a guidepost for a better future, not a blueprint” -- the ultimate goal remained clear throughout the day.

Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, another co-chairman of the committee, put it this way: “Two-hundred-twenty-eight years ago, our country had a list of grievances against a guy named George. We still have a list of grievances against a guy named George.”