Posted on 07/08/2024 10:03:07 AM PDT by Morgana
The fireworks launched Thursday are expected to continue in at least one city — Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As Republican delegates descend on the site of the GOP convention this week, some have come ready for a fight. The news that Donald Trump’s team wants to “simplify” the 60-page platform isn’t sitting well with longtime conservatives who believe the document is the party’s anchor to core values. “Presidential candidates come and go,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pointed out, but the platform “is foundational.” “There’s no reason to change it. Let’s stick with what got us here.”
Veterans of the platform debate, including Bill Gibbin — who drafted eight of the last 10 GOP documents — are increasingly troubled by what they see from the former president’s senior aides. Pointing to the secrecy with which this platform is set to be drafted, Gibbin wrote ominously in National Review, “Unfortunately, the 2024 GOP platform process is a throwback to 1972, when the Nixon White House, in its imperial-presidency phase, micromanaged everything. But even then, Nixon didn’t treat the delegates as if they were in a witness-protection program.”
Gibbin goes on to point to the history of the platform and its significance in assuring Donald Trump’s election. “The 2016 Trump campaign’s involvement with the platform text consisted of one meeting at the RNC for his representative, John Mashburn, to read the draft. He suggested two small deletions. Many would argue that the remainder of the document helped the candidate win in November by appealing to Evangelicals and others wary of his earlier behavior — an example of winning by policy commitments rather than personality.” At the end of the day, he insists, “For guidance on ensuring a good Republican platform, look to the past.” In other words, resist Trump’s pressure to “streamline.”
Like so many other Republican leaders watching the events in Milwaukee with concern, Senator Graham warns that radically changing the platform takes away an important, motivating contrast with Democrats for voters. “You try to say, ‘Here’s who I am as a Republican.’ And let’s talk about the life issue,” which, as most media outlets have pointed out, is the greatest source of contention for the party. “For over 40 years, we have stated as a platform, as a doctrine of faith, that an unborn child is a member of the human family and deserving protection under the 14th Amendment. … Democrats basically would allow abortion up to the moment of birth. They think the unborn child is a blob of cells. We believe it to be a member of the human family that is foundational to who we are,” he insisted to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a delegate at the convention, on Friday’s “Washington Watch.”
Graham pointed to the near-dozen GOP governors who won reelection in 2022 after signing strong pro-life protections. Despite the Left trying to “demagogue the abortion issue,” he said, “they won.” “So the narrative that being pro-life hurts you politically is a false narrative perpetrated by the liberal media, who wants us to be ashamed or afraid of embracing pro-life policies. ... If you listen to the chattering class, the gun issue and the life issue hurts us. It does not. … We’re going to be in a world of hurt if we don’t stick with the pro-life community. We’re going to be in a world of hurt,” he repeated.
The South Carolinian used his own reelection campaign as an example why. “People give me money, and I appreciate it,” Graham said. “I raised $112 million in my last race, the highest in the history of the Senate, except my opponent, who raised $132 million. We had money from all over the country, $5 and $10, a bunch of money coming in. You know what got me elected by over 10 points? It [was] people who knocked on doors and made phone calls on my behalf, the people who believe in the sanctity of life … the activists. All the people who write these [big] checks,” the ones, he claims who think social issues hurt the GOP, “are not going to make one phone call, and they’re not knocking on one door.”
“Do not be ashamed of being pro-life,” Graham urged. “It is a responsible position to take. It is a position the American people will understand if you advocate it right. If you look scared and you act scared, you will lose no matter what the issue is. So be not afraid. Be pro-life.”
Perkins, who this week launched a major effort, the Platform Integrity Project, to safeguard the language of the GOP’s guiding document, strongly agreed. “We’ve heard this slogan ‘Making America Great Again,’” he told Graham. “But for the United States to be great again, we must first be good morally. We must have a moral foundation. So this platform must address issues like the sanctity of human life to defend the most vulnerable, the family, religious freedom — those things that are fundamental to a strong and prosperous nation.”
He also pointed to 2022 as a perfect example of what can happen when Republicans are “confident in who we are and we can defend the positions we have.” Ultimately, it “expose[s] the weakness in the policy positions of others,” he underscored, and “we win.” “The Democrats are the ones who have the extreme positions,” Perkins reminded everyone. “And when that is exposed, abortion up until the moment of birth at taxpayers’ expense, the American people get it.”
Another thing to remember, Graham emphasized, is that this will never be “just a states’ rights issue.” For one, the Left doesn’t treat it that way. “The Democratic Party is hell-bent on nationalizing the abortion issue [by] shutting down every pro-life law in every state, federalizing abortion rights so that you can have an abortion. Literally, late-term abortions will be legal. There’ll be no limits. All the exceptions consume the rule there. They want to create a national law allowing abortion-on-demand in all 50 states up to the moment of birth.”
Exactly, Perkins said. “So just so people are clear on this, it is only one party and an element of one party talking about this being strictly a state issue.” And it’s important for Americans to know, Graham chimed in, “Democrats are saying they want to [not only codify] Roe. … They go well beyond that. The law they introduced — we voted on it — goes well beyond what the Roe standard was. What are we trying to do?” he asked. “We’re trying to take it from the courts to elected officials.” But that includes elected federal officials, Graham argued.
“I support President Trump,” the senator said. “I want him to win. I’m going to help him [by doing] everything I can. He believes this is a states’ rights issue. He talks about the downside, the [horror] of late-term abortions. What I think we should be doing is saying, ‘Yes, it is a state issue, but it’s also about the child itself.’ So what I want to do is not change our platform,” which carves out specific roles for Congress in defending life. “If we change our platform and we buy into the narrative [that] being pro-life is bad politics … we’re going to be net losers, because the people who believe like we do are going to abandon us because we’ve abandoned what makes us different.”
After spending 50 years trying to get Roe v. Wade overturned on the legal grounds that abortion is NOT a federal matter, it is utterly hypocritical for anyone in the movement to turn around and claim that it IS an issue for the federal government to address.
“I have to agree with Lindsey on the pro-life issue.”
I do too but that was a given.
Some here seem to forget how much abortion has not only destroyed the family but really the Democrat party as well.
Biden has risen to the top on a pile of dead babies and look what he’s gotten him?
Do we really want this? No we don’t.
Seriously- he should just shut the F up- but he won’t
“...isn’t sitting well with longtime conservatives...”. Huh? I missed it I guess. Butt, linda having a hissy fit is worth it.
Limpsey’s foundational platform is keeping his pals at the Pentagon busy with foreign, pointless, proxy wars.
“Pro-lifers must win the battle at the state level and in the trenches, at abortion clinics.”
Do you really think the war is “over”? No it’s not.
They want to bring back roe. It will never be “over” there will always be a fight to keep roe dead. I thought you all knew this? I thought I spelled this out before roe died?
This is a constant battle. This evil never dies.
People despise you Linda, so shut up because we don’t care what you say.
Let’s stick with what got us here.”
Where?
In a potential tight race against a crooked, senile, pedophile and a no-talent whore?
I’m thinking Linda should be paying more attention to what Trump is saying, and less at “what got us here”.
The platform is of paramount importance to me and I find myself awkwardly in support of Graham
Unborn citizens are being legally murdered to the tune of 2000 per day in this country. It most certainly is a vital part of our platform and to abandon it would further disincentivize the social conservatives that work, donate and run in the Republican Party.
1. I despise Graham.
2. I have voted for Trump 5 times, and donated to his campaigns, and u look forward to voting for him again and will be contributing more.
3. Despite that Graham is correct this time (in the same way that a stopped clock is right twice a day). We ought not to make NAJOR changes to the platform - and I would characterize any substantial change in the Republican Party’s commitment to life being “major.”
4. Trump is going to be the nominee and, as such, has the right to tinker with certain aspects of the platform - after all as the nominee, he’s the head of the Party.
5. Given the state of the race now - with Biden’s (or whomever has been running him, to be more accurate) policies having proven to be a disaster, with his longtime mental infirmity being in the open for all to see, with the Dems eating their own, in public, every single day, and with Trump pulling into a very strong lead of about 6 points nationally - I think that we, as a Party, should dov2 things: a) don’t change our main message, but show where our policies will help deal with various problems that Biden and the Dems created and will do more of, if they control the WH after 1/20/2025; and b) don’t distract the enemy from destroying themselves very publicly by giving them anything to unify about. This is our election to lose at this point, so we should press our advantages and STFU about everything else.
Platforms never seem to go anywhere after Republicans hold power, so I don’t pay much attention to them.
Our platform needs to be Biden is a mental mess, can’t handle the functions of the Presidency, and democrat policies are a roadblock to progress in economic & foreign affairs.
He’s most concerned about the part of the charter that makes every last worthless, rotten, sniveling, lying, backstabbing member of the GOP possible.
There's no reason to change it because the GOP will ignore it, anyway. If the GOP actually fought for the values that they espouse in their platform, maybe this country wouldn't be in the mess that it is in right now.
You are absolutely correct. This issue has been delegated to the states as it should be. It would be wise to nuetralize this issue for the upcoming presidential election leaving the Dems with one less weapon to attack President Trump.
Mittens is gone come January, the Turtle is gonna hide in his shell the rest of his term and Linda needs to position herself as the lead RINO.
UNLESS: THE “PLATFORM’ ONLY CONSISTED OF 60 ITEMS PRINTED IN VERY LARGE TYPE....
WE DO NOT NEED 60 pagers for ANYTHING, LINDSEY
Most Republicans can express their “platform’ in under 15 items
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