Democrats Back Draft of National Platform

CLEVELAND —  The Democrats endorsed a draft of their party’s national platform Saturday, approving a 52-page elaboration of Al Gore’s stump speech that emphasizes maintaining the country’s robust economy.

After a daylong meeting, the 100-plus members of the party’s platform committee backed Vice President Gore’s vision for his presidency, sending the document to the floor of next month’s Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, where it is expected to pass easily.

But the mostly sedate meeting, designed to demonstrate how the party has coalesced behind Gore, was livened up by efforts from several progressive Democrats who proposed adding more language supporting workers’ rights and environmental protection.

Those efforts were shot down, and their backers voiced concern that the party’s centrist leanings would turn off more liberal Democratic constituencies and could drive voters toward Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate.

“We need a platform that’s big enough for everyone to stand on,” said Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich. “I’d like Al Gore to win. I don’t think he wins on a platform that doesn’t embrace these principles.”

Party leaders dismissed this criticism, saying the prosperity experienced under the Clinton-Gore administration has helped labor and environmentalists advance their own agendas.

“We’ve done a lot to ensure that progressive members of the Democratic Party feel like this platform speaks to their issues,” said Sharon Sayles Belton, mayor of Minneapolis and co-chairwoman of the committee. “It doesn’t take them exactly where they want to go, but it keeps us moving in the right direction. . . . And they understand clearly that none of these issues are going to be advanced by the Republican Party.”

The 2000 Democratic Party platform--broken down into sections labeled prosperity, progress and peace--emphasizes fiscal discipline and using the current wealth to shore up Social Security, improve public education and invest in poor communities. It also repeatedly criticizes the past Republican leadership and the proposals of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the likely GOP presidential nominee.

Sounding a moderate tone, a shift from the more liberal language in past decades, the platform emphasizes the need for welfare reform, victims’ rights and accountability in public schools. Party standards, such as protecting the environment and abortion rights, are reaffirmed. And the document includes many of Gore’s favorite issues, such as promoting responsible fatherhood, using technology to improve the environment and making government more responsive.

“It’s Al Gore’s platform, and just remember that the reason we’re doing this platform is to elect Al Gore president of the United States,” Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, told the delegates in a large room in the Cleveland Convention Hall. “I’m sure as we go through this debate, there will be parts that some of us won’t like . . . but this is a good, unifying platform for our party.”

Most of the day amounted to a showcase for fiercely partisan sentiments, with delegates booing the names of Republican leaders and applauding Gore, whom one delegate called “the most engaged vice president in history.” But several members of the party’s progressive caucus said that by not including their proposals for stronger language on fair trade, universal health care and narrowing the income gap, the platform merely rubber-stamps Gore’s agenda.

“This platform was drafted before the drafting committee even looked at it, and this whole thing is a wired process,” said Jim Clarke, secretary of the California Democratic Party.

Donna Brazile, Gore’s campaign manager, brushed off suggestions that the campaign had controlled the process. “The door to the Democratic Party is wide open.”

While the document includes language that Gore “will insist on and use the authority to enforce worker rights, human rights and environmental protections” in trade agreements, the progressive caucus wanted the platform to take a stronger stance, insisting on more “transparency” in the proceedings of the World Trade Organization and a push to forgive Third World debt. That and other progressive amendments failed.

Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney who introduced the failed amendments, said that at least the protesters gathered in Los Angeles “will know that there are those of us in the Democratic Party who agree with many of their goals and their wishes and their dreams.”

California state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) said that, even though the campaign acquiesced on some language about fair trade during behind-the-scenes negotiations over the last few days, the protests at the convention, as well as Nader’s candidacy, will guarantee that the debate will continue to dog Gore.

Saturday’s dissension, however, was a mere whisper compared to past Democratic clashes over civil rights and the Vietnam War.

Nowadays, “everyone is so intent on uniting behind a winning candidate that they’re not willing to fight over these issues,” said Allan J. Lichtman, chairman of the history department at American University. “It weakens the parties, mutes the quality of political debate and it is one factor that contributes to low [voter] turnout.”