Abstract

A Platform for the Timid

The article looks at the presidential campaign platform of Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 United States elections. Instead of a manifesto for change that might attract new support, or at least energize the base, the platform that delegates to the Democratic National Convention are expected to approve without debate is a tepid document largely defined by Kerry's fear of being identified as a liberal--let alone as a progressive seeking to surf what polls suggest is a rising tide of antiwar sentiment. Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut Congresswoman whom Democratic leaders put in charge of drafting the party's 2004 platform, who unlike Kerry and vice presidential pick John Edwards voted against authorizing the President George W. Bush Administration's use of force against Iraq, argues that the platform rejects the Administration's approach to the world, and she can point to some strong words of condemnation. The guardians of platform language gave up the prospect that the document might actually attract new votes to the Kerry/Edwards ticket--especially candidate Ralph Nader's voters, about whom Democrats still spend so much time worrying. When allies of the Backbone Campaign, a grassroots movement to push the party in a progressive direction, offered an amendment spelling out steps the party would take to rewrite the Patriot Act and protect civil liberties, there was clear enthusiasm even among Kerry backers on the platform committee. The amendment was defeated, however, leaving the national Democratic Party with a platform that is no stronger in its criticism of the Patriot Act than the platform of the Idaho Republican Party.