Why Bother With Party Platforms?

The time has come for the quintessential quadrennial tradition that shifts from great city to great city and provides the country with new injections of patriotism. No, it’s not the Olympics, but the increasingly irrelevant Democratic and Republican party conventions (if you need proof of the increasing irrelevance of these events, then look no further than the decreasing airtime given them by the major broadcast networks). The party platforms may be the most irrelevant outgrowth of the conventions. They purport to be documents that reflect the policy positions of the majority of the party supporters. While that may be true, what’s also true is that party platforms have little or no influence on voter choice. How many voters do you think actually read the platforms when deciding for whom to vote for as the next president?

Political platforms were born in an era when the presidential nominees was yet to be chosen. Consequently, the party wrote the document as a reflection of its policy aspirations regardless of the nominee. Indeed, an argument can be made that the parties were more important than the nominees in that era, thus the need for strong policy statements.

Now, with the nominee known months in advance of the convention, party platforms reflect more of the presidential candidate than the party. The nominee names the bulk of the drafting committee thereby ensuring the document best supports his or her candidacy. At most, platforms are documents intended to interest the party activist class into more faithful support of the nominee. They certainly don’t make or break a candidacy in the eyes of voters.

The draft 2004 Democratic national platform, "Strong at Home, Respected in the World" hits all the right notes on making the homeland secure, strengthening the economy, health care, education, and the environment. The document calls for stronger coordination between U.S. intelligence and security agencies, expanding health care coverage for children and adults, and making college more affordable, among other initiatives. These are hardly the kinds of positions that can be easily quibbled with; who doesn’t support such positions. However, as has been said in many other venues, the devil is in the details and the platform doesn’t do detail very well. It is largely silent on how to pay for these new initiatives and leaves much unsaid for those concerned with the structural problems in American society that create many of the needs the platform seeks to address.

The Republican platform, due in late August and yet to be released in draft form, is unlikely to be more inspirational or specific, which leaves us with two documents with input from a few hundred party activists that say very little to arouse voters.

I say let’s do away with the hyperbole that surrounds party platforms. They just aren’t that important. I’ll bet that very few voters go to the polls on election day having had their minds changed or confirmed one iota by a party platform. Moreover, the president isn’t held to what the platforms say and won’t hesitate to move away from a platform plank once in office. Platforms are a waste of time and resources, a relic of a bygone era, and should be dispensed with.

© Michael K. Fauntroy

July 17, 2004