Novak: Bush employing platform shoos to keep party in line

[kskiska]

With the Republican National Convention's platform committee convening in New York less than three weeks from now, no draft platform exists, no subcommittees have been named, and no special lodging for committee members has been assigned. Rather than signifying sudden collapse of accustomed Republican efficiency, all this looks more like a coolly calculated plan.

The suspicion has grown that President Bush's re-election strategists -- Karl Rove and Karen Hughes -- do not want the open debate over principles and policy that has characterized Republican platform-making for a generation. The carefully guarded Bush campaign game plan is to present delegates on the platform committee with an unpleasant surprise when they arrive in New York: a trimmed down document with virtually no time to debate it.

(snip)

The Democrats at least went through the charade of an open drafting committee session, which was totally controlled by the Kerry campaign. But the Bush campaign appears to be readying the platform committee with a fait accompli. If they are given the antiseptic document that appears likely, an explosion may occur in New York.

(snip)

What the Bush campaign seems to be building is what one veteran GOP operative told us is ''the antithesis of traditional Republican platforms. After all, when you're proud of your positions, and confident of their rightness, you want to explain them. When you're afraid to talk about them, well . . .''

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