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I didn't have enough on job creation and how the Republican House thwarted the Administration's economic initiatives. My writing on abortion was a bit off, particularly where I stated, "Women should be free to choose to work, to stay home and to get as many abortions as they want ... Let us be clear: abortions are awesome." She also thought nine was too many times to mention killing Osama bin Laden. My proposals to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act and increase gas taxes, she thought, wouldn't pass the committee. I thought the only time this much effort goes into an unread document is when guys write letters to get back ex-girlfriends. But big fights go down at conventions over platforms. This year, Ron Paul is trying to collect platform-committee members state by state, while Romney's camp tries to prevent this, possibly by offering them $50 gold buffalo coins.
That's because the platform, while unread, is a guide to what the party will do whenever it gains control of the White House and Congress. The Republican platform has essentially advocated abolishing the Department of Education since 2000. The Democrats had Medicare in their platform for four election cycles before 1965, advocated civil rights starting in 1948 and have already decided to support gay marriage this year. The unread things, after all, are where we express who we are and what we believe America should be. And from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln to the troops who landed in Normandy, true Americans have always thought that vision was worth fighting for. That, basically, is the tone I used in the platform.
So, like Paul, I'm taking my platform fight all the way to the convention. You--and by you I mean nobody--can read my platform at time.com/joelsplatform After not reading it, write the DNC and demand that it adopt it. But even if it doesn't, I'm adding "Wrote 2012 DNC platform" to my rsum.