Free Republic

The Republican Party’s Platform Committee adopted a draft document Tuesday that not only recognizes the unborn child’s “fundamental right to life,” but also calls for defunding Planned Parenthood and states that the GOP will “not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage.” The draft platform still has to be adopted by the full GOP Convention, which will be held in Cleveland next week. The Platform Committee, which was chaired by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) — who has a 100 percent pro-life voting record, according to the National Right to Life Committee — and dominated by social conservatives, adopted...

Another pablum platform Robert Novak (archive) August 5, 2004 | Print | Send WASHINGTON -- 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...