Political Platforms

Democrats, aware that polls show security as their weakest issue, heard tough denunciations of President Bush's military policies Saturday in a hearing to work on the party's platform for the presidential campaign. Inadequate supplies, training and personnel, lack of batteries in Iraq for vital gear such as night-vision goggles and big policy miscalculations were typical of the mixed bag of charges that speakers inside and outside the military laid against the Republicans.

The Democratic Party platform for 2004 will emphasize national security more than any party blueprint since the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s, according to a copy released Saturday. Across the full range of domestic and foreign issues, the platform approved by the convention's drafting committee closely follows the agenda of presumptive nominee Sen. John F. Kerry and underscores the Democrats' determination to present a united front against President Bush.

Democratic Party stalwarts intent on producing a party platform with broad appeal turned aside one effort after another on Saturday to move the presidential campaign document -- and the party -- leftward. Sixteen days before the party convenes in Boston, the platform committee approved a document that walked away from proposed language calling the war in Iraq a mistake and seeking a specific date for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

President Bush has some explaining to do. When he steps on stage at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night to accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination, swing voters say, they want to know how he plans to lower gas prices, make healthcare more affordable and create jobs. America's shrinking cadre of crucial undecided voters say they want to hear Bush promise that he won't touch Social Security funds to pay for something else.

They may have been pushed mostly out of the prime-time spotlight, but Christian conservatives left the Republican National Convention on Friday inspired by one of the most socially conservative party platforms in years and determined to reelect a president they viewed as an ideological soul mate.

In George W. Bush's America, there seem to be few societal problems a little ownership wouldn't help solve. Social Security in trouble? Let workers set up private accounts to partially finance their own retirements. Healthcare system broken? Get Americans to self-insure and monitor their own medical expenses. Communities in distress? Help more low-income people buy homes.

A combination of escalating bloodshed, gloomy assessments and deteriorating security conditions in Iraq are challenging the Bush administration's upbeat view of the struggle to establish democracy in the beleaguered Middle East nation. A growing sense of unease is visible among Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress as bombings and kidnappings continue to rise along with the death toll.

The relentless rise in healthcare costs may now be America's most pressing domestic problem, at once a threat to the economy, family budgets and the social safety net. It's also a window into one of the clearest choices facing voters in November. Since 2000, health insurance premiums have soared by 59%, much faster than in the late 1990s, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's authoritative annual survey.