Democratic Platform

The euphoria over former President Clinton's address Wednesday night to the Democratic National Convention only partly erased the embarrassment created earlier in the day when the delegates made two last-minute additions to the party platform. Or did they? With Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former speaker of the California Assembly, awkwardly wielding the gavel, the delegates had to be polled three times on a motion to ratify amendments declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel and referring to the "God-given potential" of working people.

The euphoria over former President Clinton's address Wednesday night to the Democratic National Convention only partly erased the embarrassment created earlier in the day when the delegates made two last-minute additions to the party platform. Or did they? With Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former speaker of the California Assembly, awkwardly wielding the gavel, the delegates had to be polled three times on a motion to ratify amendments declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel and referring to the "God-given potential" of working people.

The Democratic platform committee Saturday gave its approval to a 1992 policy manifesto intended to give the party a more centrist image while preserving the allegiance of its traditional constituencies. The committee, controlled by partisans of presumptive presidential nominee Bill Clinton, also took a step toward promoting unity with one of his primary rivals, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The second night of the Democratic National Convention began in confusion and dissent Wednesday over a last-minute effort to reinsert language in the party's platform invoking God and affirming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, an embarrassing episode that marred what otherwise has been a highflying gathering. The maneuver triggered booing by delegates in Time Warner Cable Arena and raised questions about how President Obama's campaign overlooked the omissions in the drafting process - a failure that handed the Republicans fresh fodder to levy attacks about the administration's values.

The following is an excerpted copy of a letter from Howard Adler, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Central Committee, written this month to Phil Angelides, chairman of the California Democratic Party. Dear Phil: Who makes up the categories for our platform? I just received the list. When I read them my eyes glued over. They are so general they will no doubt produce the usual bloated platitudes that appeal to political junkies and then are destined to be ignored.

On that April night when Neil Kinnock's new model Labor Party confounded the pundits and opinion polls and lost the British election, Bill Clinton tore up the speech of triumph he was planning to deliver. The speech was to have been about "a wind of change sweeping across the Atlantic," just as Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979, had paved the way for the Reagan Revolution the following year, so, once again, the political fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon world were moving in step.

The Democratic platform, the party's election-year statement of its agenda for the nation, this year continues a march from liberal orthodoxy to the political center that has been the hallmark of the Clinton era. Despite some modest concessions to the party's traditional liberal interests, the platform that will be approved by the convention Tuesday is a monument to how much the Clinton administration has shifted the party on key issues.

This is a revised version of the original post; see the note below. Except for the editorial page of the New York Times, which gushed about its provisions and criticized President Obama for not giving louder voice to them, the 2012 Democratic platform hasn't gotten a lot of attention. But suddenly "Moving America Forward" was big news, not because of what it contained but because of what was missing. The Republican ticket professed dismay about two omissions: the lack of any reference to God, and the disappearance of a provision from the 2008 Democratic platform declaring that "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.

WOODSTOCK, Vt. - Republican vice president nominee Paul Ryan sharply criticized Democrats for removing a passage from their 2012 platform stating that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel - language that was part of the party document in 2008. “This is tragic,” Ryan said during a Wednesday morning appearance on "Fox & Friends. " "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Mitt Romney and I are very clear on this…. What is so tragic about this is that this is one of the few issues where the Republican Party and the Democratic Party agreed.”  “Our two party platforms were emphatic about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, the issues surrounding the right of return, and Hamas," he said.  The status of Jerusalem, which is the legal capital of Israel, is a central point of dispute in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - In their 2012 platform, Democrats left out a passage from their 2008 party document affirming that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel - a charged issue that gave Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney an opening to push his argument that he would be a stronger supporter of the Jewish state than President Obama. The topic of Jerusalem is a flashpoint in Israeli-Palestinian relations: while the city is the country's legal capital, it is also where Palestinians want to locate the capital of an independent state.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama, marking the end of a prolonged "evolution" on the issue, now favors allowing homosexual couples to marry, he said in a television interview Wednesday. The announcement comes days after Vice President Joe Biden's comments that he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay marriage put new pressure on Obama to clarify his position on the issue. Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts Wednesday: "Over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

To the evident discomfort of the White House and President Obama's reelection campaign, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has called for the Democratic Party's 2012 platform to include an endorsement of same-sex marriage. Instead of resenting - or fearing - the mayor's proposal, Obama should embrace it and end once and for all the exasperating "evolution" of his views on the subject. In an interview with Politico, the mayor, who will serve as chairman of the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., said: "I believe in family values, and I believe that we all ought to be able to have a family and marry if you want to. I don't think the government should be in that business of denying people the fundamental right to marry.

As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take "immediate and public steps" to condemn future perceived instances of bias.

SINCE ALMOST immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, Republicans have been saying that the Democratic approach to fighting Islamic radicalism is to curl up in a little ball and hope the bad men go away. President Bush constantly asserts things such as: "Some say, 'Well, this is just a matter of law enforcement and intelligence,' " or "The natural tendency for people is to say, 'Oh, let's lay down our arms.' But you can't negotiate with these people.... Therapy won't work."

A party platform is mostly a list of promises to voters about what the party will do when it takes power. But even today's Republicans, who control the executive branch, both wings of the legislature and the courts, cannot easily deliver on their promises. Freed of practical consequence, the platform becomes a useful look at the party's state of mind. The platform tells you not what the party stands for, but how it wishes to be perceived.