GOP Frets: People Are Interested in Reading Their Platform

     Turns out voters are much more interested in the party platform-with the Akin position on abortion-than hearing Mitt Romney tell us he really loves his wife and 5 sons and was able to "connect" without any problem with his elite college fraternity.

     "Voters are interested in the Republican Party platform — a development that could actually be bad for Republicans."

       Why does this strange turn of events seem to always come up for the GOP? Why does greater clarity always hurt their chances? It's a thing that makes you go hmmmmm.... It's a riddle, trapped in an enigma-not unlike Mitt Romney, himself, of whom many Repuiblican strategists admit is more or less unknowable.

      "The document, which party officials craft every four years at their convention, is usually a minor sideshow compared to the big speeches."

     “Any of you ever read the party platform?” House Speaker John Boehner joked to reporters on Monday in Tampa when asked about certain provisions."

      "But this year’s platform, versions of which have leaked to the press, features a plethora of politically perilous planks touching on social issues that the Romney campaign hopes to downplay in favor of the economy."

       "A new Pew poll released Monday shows that over half of voters are interested in learning about the GOP platform during the convention, a higher percentage than those who expressed interest in the week’s main event: Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech."

     "The most notable move is the Republican platform committee’s decision to include a ban on abortion that doesn’t outline exceptions for rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother. Romney has said his campaign’s own position includes these exceptions, despite running mate Paul Ryan’s hardline take on issue."

     "The rape exception has turned into an explosive political issue ever since Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin falsely claimed in an interview that women have biological defenses against pregnancy from “legitimate rape.” An ABC poll last month showed fewer than two in 10 Americans support a no-exceptions ban on abortion."
  
     Yeah, the old Akin Plank sure is uncomfortable. Darn these people and their reading. No wonder Rick Santorum called the President a snob! It's funny as Boehner in particular has been saying that the platform is largely meaningless and that no one reads it. Turns out the problem is not that nobody reads it but that people actually do.

     "But abortion isn’t the only culture war touchstone where the platform could create problems. It also includes combative language regarding gay rights, an issue national Republicans have studiously tried to avoid for fear of appearing bigoted in an increasingly tolerant America. A leaked draft not only reiterates opposition to gay marriage, which was expected, but takes a strong position against the administration’s bipartisan and highly popular decision to allow gays to serve openly in the military."

   “We reject the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation and will not accept attempts to undermine military priorities and mission readiness,” a line in the national security section reads.

   "The platform has also been amended since 2008 to call for a renewed crackdown on pornography.
Cultural issues aside, the section on Medicare could be problematic as well. Romney has deliberately released few details about his own plan and is deliberately trying to muddy the debate over Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare by misleadingly accusing Obama of cutting the program’s benefits instead. The platform bluntly calls for transforming Medicare into a voucher system, explaining in detail how proposals Romney and Ryan have championed would replace the popular entitlement with an entirely different program."

      Aha! Their going after pornography!They're coming after Larry Flynt next! They still hold a grudge about his devastating piece on all the phony GOP hypocrite Congressmen attacking Bill Clinton back in the 90s, ,huh?

      Of course, Mitt Romney tells us none of this matters. I mean yeah,  why would anyone allow the Akin Plank in the GOP platform stop them from voting for Mitt Romney? What can he do as President of the United States? You kjnow, other than pass the next Ryan-Akin Personhood Bill that comes out of the Congress, his plan to abolish Planned Parenthood, and his promise to put on rigid prolife ideologues to the Supreme Court in the Todd Akin mold?

    All we would care about are his misleading attacks on the President as being solely responsible for the economy-rather than Paul Ryan's Congress who's budget austerity is responsible for the deep cuts in state and local spending, without which we would already be regularly seeing job growth of 250,000 or considerably more, per month.