Platform Tilts Buchanan’s Way
The Republican platform committee is finalizing a statement of party principles closer in tone and emphasis to the nationalism and domestic conservatism of Patrick J. Buchanan than the party’s presumptive nominee Bob Dole.
Public attention has focused on abortion, an issue on which Buchanan and Christian conservatives forced Dole to abandon a proposed statement of “tolerance” for those who disagreed with the party’s antiabortion stance. But the victory of conservative forces in writing the party platform was virtually across the board, encompassing immigration, foreign policy, quotas and a host of other issues.
“This is very Buchanan,” said Angela “Bay” Buchanan, the candidate’s sister and campaign chairman. “We could not be more pleased. This is much more of a populist, conservative, Buchananesque platform than we ever dreamed, to be honest.”
She said it was likely that the conservative agreement on the platform would open the way for Buchanan to endorse Dole, something he has resisted.
There are competing forces at work as the platform committee completes its work and Dole prepares for the convention that will nominate him for the presidency. Buchanan is anxious to have his positions recognized as official party doctrine. Dole and his aides want the convention to be be seen as more moderate and open than the party’s 1992 gathering in Houston.
“Senator Dole’s job was just to keep the party together,” said Paul Manafort, his convention manager. “The majority view will be reflected in the platform, the minority view will be reflected in the appendix. Dole said he wanted the big tent approach and he wanted all opinions to be reflected. Everyone said that couldn’t be done, and Dole did it.”
The idea was also fine with leaders on the party’s right, partly because they had won so many other concessions.
“The Dole campaign is very much guided by polls,” said Bay Buchanan. “They started to poll these issues, I believe they recognized these issues to be good issues, solid issues.”
Included in the platform were:
A commitment to oppose subordination of American “sovereignty to any international authority,” including the commitment of U.S. troops “to U.N. ‘peacekeeping’ operations under foreign commanders … we (will not) permit any international court to seize, try or punish American citizens.”
A single paragraph that opposed same-sex marriages, quotas and preferences under affirmative action, and that endorsed both national legislation and a California initiative to bar racial and gender preferences.
Support for the appointment of federal judges who not only “respect traditional family values,” but respect “the sanctity of human life,” a shorthand for opposing abortion.