My promises are in the platform.
John F. Kennedy I accept . . . the happy privilege of campaigning on your platform.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Party platforms have traditionally been ramshackle structuresill-assorted odds and ends of lumber loosely nailed together by cautious, compromise-minded committees. By comparison, the 1960 Democratic platform, grandly entitled "The Rights of Man," is a well-made document: straightforward, clear, brief andas platforms goprobably the most coherent blueprint for Utopia ever to come out of a convention. As such, it reflected not only the promises of the candidate but the leanings of its principal architect: Platform Committee Chairman Chester...