Posted on 08/24/2004 8:49:17 PM PDT by Conservative Firster
A draft Republican Party platform distributed last night to delegates takes conservative stands on several social issues that sometimes divide the party, including abortion, stem-cell research and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
But it also supports the expansion of legal immigration, a position that is already drawing opposition from some in the party's conservative base.
Roughly half of this year's Republican platform is devoted to foreign policy and national security. "President Bush has confronted unprecedented challenges, including a world scarred by terrorism," its preamble begins. "The president's leadership has achieved successes once deemed impossible to realize in so short a period of time."
The platform also puts the creation of private investment accounts within the Social Security system high on Mr. Bush's domestic agenda.
Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate Republican leader and co-chairman of the platform committee, said in an interview that this year's platform addressed a host of new "hot button" issues that did not emerge four years ago, both on the domestic front and on combating terrorism.
On immigration, the platform supports Mr. Bush's call for a new temporary worker program that would also be open to some current illegal immigrants.
Mr. Frist said, "The president has spoken, and there has been a reaction, and this is the first forum to debate it."
"There is a lot of misrepresentation of the president's policy, that people can take shortcuts to citizenship," he said. "There will be a lot clarification of that."
Republican strategists say that although the president's proposals on immigration have largely fallen out of the headlines, the subject remains a delicate issue within the party. Loosening immigration restrictions offers an opportunity for Republicans to court the rapidly growing number of Hispanic voters while pleasing some big employers. But the measures face stiff resistance within the party's conservative base.
Carlos Espinosa, a spokesman for Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has helped lead the fight against loosening immigration rules, said Mr. Tancredo and other opponents hoped to force a debate on the matter.
"These conventions are for the base to figure out who we are and where we stand and what we stand for," Mr. Espinosa said. "Tom is doing everything he can to make sure we do have a debate on immigration," he added.
Other social issues are not expected to generate the same debate, with moderates saying they had few hopes of changing the party's direction at this year's convention.
On national security, the draft platform repeatedly refers to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and commends the president for his "steadfast resolve" at that time. It describes Mr. Bush's foreign policy as "marked by a determination to challenge new threats, not ignore them, or simply wait for future tragedy - and by a renewed commitment to building a hopeful future in hopeless places, instead of allowing troubled regions to remain in despair and explode in violence."
Declaring Mr. Bush's foreign policy to be "in the finest traditions of the Republican Party," the draft quotes from the platform of the party's 1984 convention during the cold war. "The supreme purpose of our foreign policy must be to maintain our freedom in a peaceful international environment in which the United States and our allies and friends are secure against military threats, and democratic governments are flourishing in a world of increasing prosperity."
But this year's draft is in sharp contrast with the platform of the convention that nominated Mr. Bush four years ago, in which national security was vastly overshadowed by a domestic agenda. Criticizing the Clinton administration for running down the nation's defenses, in part though "promiscuous commitments" abroad, the 2000 platform had charged that "the administration constantly enlarges the reach of its rhetoric," making the United States a "global social worker." It added: "We propose our principles; we must not impose our culture," and "The military is not a civilian police force or a political referee."
Asked about the contrast with the 2000 platform, Senator Frist acknowledged the shift in the party's stand toward foreign interventions. "I think that 9/11 transformed the world, and that is going to be reflected in this document."
Despite the continuing turmoil in Najaf and other parts of Iraq, the draft describes the situation there as one of Mr. Bush's notable achievements, saying Iraq "is now becoming an example of reform to the region." The draft acknowledges that "the stockpiles of W.M.D." - weapons of mass destruction - "we expected to find in Iraq have not materialized," but says "the best intelligence available at the time indicated that Saddam Hussein was a threat" and "our nation did the right thing."
On the subject of abortion, the platform retained from previous conventions a call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, expanding its discussion of the abortion issue to a five paragraph section on the "culture of life" from just two paragraphs in the 2000 platform in a section titled "Upholding the Rights of All."
On same-sex marriage, the draft says the party "strongly supports President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage," calling heterosexual marriage "the most fundamental institution of civilization."
Republican dissenters from the party's conservative stands on social issues have tried in recent weeks to persuade the staff drafting the platform to modify some planks. Christopher Barron, political director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, said that given the slim chances of eliminating the endorsement of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage from the platform, his group pushed for a "unity plank" to acknowledge that some party members might disagree about the subject. Abortion-rights advocates have tried without success for similar provisions in years past.
Representative Michael N. Castle of Delaware, who supports abortion rights and is president of the Main Street Partnership, a organization of moderate Republicans, said his group had given up on trying to dissuade this year's convention from its opposition to abortion.
Instead, he said, the organization pushed to convince the party to take a more open position toward research using embryonic stem cells. But in a telephone interview yesterday Mr. Castle said that he held out little hope of a fight in the platform hearings. "I don't intend to even present this," he said.
Read later.
But it also supports the expansion of legal immigration, a position that is already drawing opposition from some in the party's conservative base.Roughly half of this year's Republican platform is devoted to foreign policy and national security.
There is NO security without secure borders. NONE. I'll be voting accordingly. Look at this madness and tell me you feel safer:
Press Release -- New! Tom Tancredo: Tancredo Questions State Department Move to Grant 100 Undocumented Muslims Citizenship
To hear reports about anyone being granted unconditional citizenship and has no identification is troubling to say the least...
Craig Nelsen - Project USA: It Takes a Democrat to Raise an Issue; Republican Mayor's Sanctuary-for-Illegals Statement "Lunatic," says Democratic Senator Zell Miller, Republican Keynoter With the selection of an old-line Democrat to give the keynote speech at the Republican national convention in New York at the end of the month, the chance of a convention floor fight over the immigration issue may have increased substantially despite the best efforts of the party establishment to suppress the issue...
In his 2003 book, Senator Miller wrote: "Two months after 9/11, New York Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg put out this lunatic statement: People who are undocumented do not have to worry about city government going to the federal government. "Unbelievable! We should be doing just the opposite. Anyone here illegally should be put in jail, his or her property forfeited, and immediately deported. An existing federal law calls for heavy fines for employers who knowingly hire illegals, but it is ignored. It should be strictly enforced. In fact, the federal government should require all employers to verify U.S. citizenship or lawful presence for each job application by a telephone or central database maintained by U.S government...
then your vote will be a vote of defeat
No, yours will be a vote for defeat. I'm voting for change, real change.
I guess if you think an electric fence will keep everybody from crossing over the border, you can stay in your delusion.
bump
By the way, what is the date of the last one coming over? Do you have any idea? Who is delusional here????
"There is a lot of misrepresentation of the president's policy, that people can take shortcuts to citizenship," he said. "There will be a lot clarification of that."
The only acceptable clarification is that illegal aliens currently in the states will NEVER be allowed to attain citizenship and must leave the country immediately.
Short of that it's garbage.
An electric fence would need to be complimented with a mine field and our soldiers.
All of which I would be in full support of.
I'm on board this election cycle. But I can only hold my nose while voting only so much longer.
There is one thing of which I am certain: whichever party wins this year will almost certainly lose in 2008.
The Times actually gets it right for a change.
That was amazing.
Pardon me; I must continue applying for jobs I'm supposedly too lazy to do much like your assembly line stint. So far every other prospective employer has asked if I speak Spanish.
That's called voting your conscience, exactly what I'm doing!
Pleasing big employers? Indubitably.
Courting Hispanic voters? Fat chance.
The gated community conservatives are electing a new populace, sorry.
If you would feel safer with Kerry in the White House then you are fooling yourself, and nobody else.
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