Why Bother With Party Platforms?
The time has come for the quintessential quadrennial tradition that shifts from great city to great city and provides the country with new injections of patriotism. No, it’s not the Olympics, but the increasingly irrelevant Democratic and Republican party conventions (if you need proof of the increasing irrelevance of these events, then look no further than the decreasing airtime given them by the major broadcast networks). The party platforms may be the most irrelevant outgrowth of the conventions. They purport to be documents that reflect the policy positions of the majority of the party supporters. While that may be true, what’s also true is that party platforms have little or no influence on voter choice. How many voters do you think actually read the platforms when deciding for whom to vote for as the next president? Political platforms were born in an era when the presidential nominees was yet to be chosen. Consequently, the party wrote the document as a reflection of its policy
