The second (and easiest in a way to answer) is “How do you get politicians to ignore the polls and vote the platform as opposed to the polls?” Know that you are never going to completely get politicians to ignore the polls. It’s just not going to happen. What you have to do is make sure that the polls are offset by communication from the unpolled folks. Republicans need to be just as relentless in writing to our elected officials as the Democrats are. It’s that simple. The more Republicans make their views known, the more politicians are going to represent those views.

LL

Yes but if you win the election and you have not common goal then how do you advance the cause? You have to have that common ground from which to legislate or else there is anarchy in the legislature.

“There is a ‘minor’ place for a platform.”

So you are saying there is only a “minor” place in the world for your deeply held beliefs. How sad for you.

“It shouldn’t be a rigid set of rules used to force people out of the party.”

At some point in time you are going to have to stand up for what you believe in. What’s the old saying - you have to stand for something or you will fall for anything.

LL

True to a extent. However, most people don’t seem to realize that the point b they are trying to get to is to actually WIN AN ELECTION! It seems to many people are more interested in losing an election to keep their “principles” then winning an election and making a difference.

There is a ‘minor’ place for a platform. It should be a loose set of ideas that people could support if their were part of the party. It shouldn’t be a rigid set of rules used to force people out of the party. If that is the way it is used, I’d rather we not have a platform. Delegates should choose candidates based on who they feel best represents them, not based on a platform they may or may not agree with.

Without a roadmap there is no party!

LL

I think I have mentioned, once or twice in the past, that I am quite fond of Peggy Noonan. As a writer she is an excellent role model - articulate, never overbearing…..a lady of full of common sense. Her column in today’s Wall Street Journal……

Every other November there is a ballot with (usually) two names to choose to represent me. Usually, neither of them agree with each other 100%. If they did, there would be no reason to bother voting. Coincidentally, usually neither candidate agree with me 100% either. That leaves 2 choices. I can vote for the candidate that most agrees with me and recognise that we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything. Second, I could choose to not “blindly follow an individual who is destroying everything you believe in” and not vote at all I suppose and feel good that even though the candidate that disagrees with me more is busy destroying everything I believe in it’s worth it because my beliefs aren’t ‘fickle.’ To me the choice is easier. For others, I guess it is harder.

But if it is not even going to be binding then the party needs to quit WASTING MY TIME going through the motions of a process (amending the platform) that they have NO INTENTIONS OF STANDING BY!!!!!

Personally, I don’t really see any point of having a platform. I find in unnecessarily devisive. It might be nice that all the delegates put together a set of planks that more or less show the general consensus of the delegates, but not if it is used to turn people away. What if someone is for lower taxes, but they support amnesty? Right now I think they feel that they are not welcome in our party.

Certainly there are many people in the party who are not 100% in agreement with the platform, but I see more and more and them feel they are getting pushed out of the party with this misguided effort to attack anyone who doesn’t support the platform 100%. We need to be welcoming to anyone who agrees with any part of the platform they want to support, not create arbitrary minimums of support to belong.

Anyways, I don’t believe parties should exist to force beliefs on anyone. Parties should exist for one purpose. To win elections. Once the elections are over, parties should get out of the way.

“What is more important - the person or the party?”

Will you blindly follow an individual who is destroying everything you believe in just because he or she has an “R” after the name? If so, then doesn’t that speak to the fickleness of your beliefs?

“if the platform is so meaningless why even both having it?”

I would rephrase it to say “why bother with going through all of the hassle of approving a platform if we are going to ignore it?”

We spend endless hours debating platform planks - starting at the precinct caucus level. If we are going to continue to support candidates who are wishy washy on the platform - why waste the time? Considering that we all would have much better things to do with our time than sit in some meeting room on a Saturday afternoon debating the minutia of the benefits of a unicameral legislature versus a bi-cameral legislation. I know I can think of nothing more important to spend my Saturdays discussing (yes I am being very VERY sarcastic).

I agree that we can not use the platform as a bludgeon, but at the bare bones minimum it should be used as a guideline and there are a few Republicans that don’t even do that! But if it is not even going to be binding then the party needs to quit WASTING MY TIME going through the motions of a process (amending the platform) that they have NO INTENTIONS OF STANDING BY!!!!!

LL

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1468.cfm

Here’s a taste.

“It would create a new “Z” visa exclusively for illegal aliens. This title would change the status of those who are here illegally to legal, essentially granting amnesty to those “previously in unlawful status.”

Oh, second point. As I’ve said to others many times, the platform is not and/or should not have the purpose of a flogging tool. We don’t have create platform so that we can spend the following 2 years going around beating elected officials with it when they step out of line. The platform should merely be a representation of what the general consensus is of the delegates. That is all. It’s not binding or anything.