With just a few days to go before the Democratic Party’s Platform Committee convenes in Miami on July 9th and 10th, supporters of Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich are gearing up to give the committee a political earful.

Readers of The Nation should join them in signing a petition demanding that the Party’s platform acknowledge that millions of loyal Democrats seek a coherent and responsible exit strategy from Iraq. (Click here to sign on.) Hundreds of Kucinich campaigners and political allies will also push hard to strengthen the platform language on healthcare and fair trade.

I think it’s shameful that the current 16,000-word document fails to even acknowledge existing divisions among Democrats on future policy toward Iraq. How can Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the platform drafting committee, say that the party is not divided about whether to stay the course? Does she read the polls? The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows that by a margin of 56 percent to 38 percent, people who call themselves Democrats say our troops should “leave Iraq as soon as possible, even if Iraq is not completely stable” rather than “stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy.” And what about the several state Democratic parties which have called on the national party to support the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq? In the Senate, Robert Byrd has been an eloquent advocate of an exit strategy, one that is “orderly and astute, else more of our men and women will follow the fate of Tennyson’s doomed light brigade.” Representative Jim McDermott and much of the Congressional Black Caucus have also called for a clear and coherent roadmap for US withdrawal.

And, in a strategically-savvy Open Letter to the Platform Committee, Tom Hayden–former member of the committee and a former California legislator, writes: “We progressives are not the happy campers that certain self-selected spokesmen describe in the New York Times. Our surface acceptance of the Party’s current direction arises from deference to our respected nominee and our common loathing of the Bush Administration. We are loyal to our partisan objective of defeating Bush, but loyal as well to those principles which we believe are shared by a majority of Democrats and Americans.” (Click here for the full text of the letter.)

Let’s hope that the platform folks listen to Hayden’s good advice. It points the way to way to winning the election. Wouldn’t the Democratic Party be a stronger–even a more unified–party if it acknowledged its differences? Disagreement will not weaken the urgency millions feel about defeating George Bush in November. And, besides, pretending that differences don’t exist won’t make it so. Honest debate could be an electoral asset for the Democrats, particularly since it’s something these incompetents in the White House seem incapable of allowing.There might even be a rallying cry in this–how about “Honesty in Differences, Unity in Beating Bush.”

Right now, it’s critical that Platform Committee Chairwoman Stephanie TubbsJones hear from as many good Democratic voices as possible. Click here for contact info and tell her ASAP that it’s important that she and the Committee listen to the concerns and values of many Democratic voters.