Party platforms, cooked in the high temperature of factional passions, quickly , grow cold as the real campaign begins. Voters would rather listen to live candidates than read moribund cliches. But last week, as Republicans finished drafting their 1988 document in New Orleans, G.O.P. leaders thought they had forged a workable weapon to use against the Democrats: the Heft Issue.
Democratic National Chairman Paul Kirk had created the opening. Kirk decided that a crafty way to debunk the charge that Democrats promise everything to everyone was to shrink the normally gargantuan party platform to a brief statement of principles. That seemed...
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