Democrats hope to craft broad appeal with 2004 platform

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – 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.

The party’s Platform Committee approved a document, 16 days before the party will convene in Boston, that walks 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 is 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 meshes with the tenor of the Kerry campaign.

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

The party leaders sought to emerge from the Westin Diplomat resort with a document that could roll across the country without costing support either in the nation’s solidly Democratic corners or among swing voters in the 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 Nearly every amendment was withdrawn or incorporated in modified language accepted by Kerry’s representatives and by other party leaders.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 foundation of the Bush administration’s domestic crusade against terrorism, was turned back.

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

Platforms are historically documents that, regardless of the fights attached to their writing, are quickly forgotten by all but ideologues and interest groups, and ignored by those who govern.