Republican Platform Research Articles

Democratic, Republican Platforms Promise Plenty

Almost lost amid the hoopla and rhetoric of the recent Democratic and Republican conventions is the parties' national platforms. These documents describe in some length just what each party believes and, at least it is hoped, how the presidential candidates will support various national issues. The documents are long, repetitive, and filled with some pretty inflated rhetoric about how their party can move the country forward with prosperity into the future. But on a number of issues, there are fundamental differences in the approaches each party says it will take to resolve national concerns. There are also some similarities. Both documents recognize that the country is in a remarkable period of prosperity and progress, and each vows to take advantage of this situation to improve the plight of the American people. Each platform calls for tax reforms, health care reforms, education reforms, and environmental improvements. But, as always, the differences ...

Origin of the 1948 Turnip Day Session of Congress

In August 1996, as President Bill Clinton's train, the Twenty-First Century Express, made campaign stops en route to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, I thought back to another Democratic president, Harry S. Truman. In 1948, Truman's whistle-stop campaign, conducted from the back of his train car, the Ferdinand Magellan, carried him to victory. At the time, Truman, like Clinton, was said to be not up to the job, and he was pitted against strident Republican Congress. Campaign strategists no doubt will continue to review the political fracas of 1948 to glean insights from Truman's come-from-behind victory. A campaigner's ability to seize political opportunities may decide an election's fate. Truman's decision to convene postconvention special session of Congress called the Turnip Day session was one such opportunity. I worked on Truman's 1948 campaign as director of the Democratic National Committee's Research Division. Over the years, historians, journalists, and others have recounted aspects of the Turnip Day session. None has fully revealed the Research Division's exact involvement. This article describes my recollection of the Turnip Day session's origin and how the idea got to Truman. During the campaign, I recruited and led team of young dedicated Democrats whose job was to prepare background papers on major issues, commentaries, and first drafts of back platform speeches the president's staff.(1) We reported directly to Clark Clifford, the special counsel, and to Charles Murphy, the assistant White House general counsel, but were attached to the Democratic National Committee for quarters and rations. Between the Republican National Convention in late June and the Democratic National Convention in mid-July, an extraordinary idea took shape, resulting in one of American political history's more imaginative campaign tactics. The president decided to call special session of Congress to complete work on the nation's legislative agenda. The Republican platform triggered the decision, which was to give Truman's campaign tremendous boost. It was vital to regain the fighting spirit the president had displayed in the first half of June during his preconvention western tour. The foremost contribution the Research Division may have made to Truman's campaign was in pressing the special session of Congress. On June 24 at the Republican National Convention, New York Governor Thomas Dewey was nominated president and California Governor Earl Warren was nominated vice president, both from the liberal wing of the party. The Research Division, in studying the platform adopted by the convention, found it to be very respectable. It backed a `bipartisan' foreign policy, foreign aid to anti-Communist countries ..., `full' recognition of Israel, housing, anti-inflation and civil rights legislation,(2) all of which represented eastern Republican middle class values. Many of the measures advocated had been proposed by the president but blocked by Congress. Republicans failed to pick up on the nuance that the platform was at absolute odds with the performance of the Eightieth Congress. After the Republican National Convention, the Research Division sought an innovative way in which to dramatize the differences between the platform and the obstructionist performance of the Congress. Calling Congress back into session to pass measures advocated in the platform, we ventured, should dramatize the president's case. I volunteered to raise the idea at the next meeting of an ad hoc group we called the Kitchen Cabinet, which provided political advice to the president, and did so on the evening of June 28 at Jack Ewing's apartment.(3) I spelled out the political advantages of calling Congress back into special session, the idea clearly had not occurred to any member of the group. I presented the best arguments I could, but the group turned down the idea. It might have appeared too audacious. …

Democratic platform calls R&D support vital

The 1996 Democratic Party platform adopted last week in Chicago is for the most part a paean to the accomplishments of President Clinton and congressional Democrats over the past four years, cataloging differences between the parties on numerous issues. But like the Republican platform (C&EN, Aug. 19, page 7), it stresses the vital role science and technology play in U.S. growth. We know investments in technology drive economic growth, generate new knowledge, create new high-wage jobs, build new industries, and improve our quality of life, states the platform. In the face of Republican efforts to undermine America's dedication to innovation, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have fought to maintain vital investments in science and technology. The platform notes, We support government policies that encourage private-sector investment and innovation to create a pro-growth economic climate, like a permanent research and development tax credit As we enter the 21st century, we will continue to in...

Henry Clay and the American System (review)

262CIVIL WAR HISTORY Henry Clay and the American System. By Maurice G. Baxter. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. Pp. 261. $34.95.) Baxter's book is an examination ofHenry Clay's role in promoting the American System. The study has value because of the care with which Baxter uncovers, step by step, Clay's leadership in championing a vital program for national economic development. It was because of his expansion of earlier plans for economic self-sufficiency first proposed by Secretary oftheTreasury Alexander Hamilton in the 1 790s that Clay became one of the most famous antebellum American politicians. Baxter dismisses economic theories almost entirely. This undoubtedly is because Clay himself relied upon practical methods rather than theories of political economy. Even as a young legislator in Kentucky's House of Representatives , Clay already was endorsing a diversified economy. Strong financial institutions and good transportation were only two of his early proposals. When Clay arrived in Congress in early 1807, he naturally found a much more effective forum for advocating such projects as an Ohio River canal. Beginning his reign as Speaker of the House in 1 8 1 1 , he defended the stronger Hamiltonian program against agrarian Jeffersonian proposals. Significant here is his stand in favor of a higher protective tariff, backing the home-market arguments of Tench Coxe, Mathew Carey, and Hezekiah Niles. In his advocacy of the American System, Clay stretched the Constitution by exaggerating powers to establish post roads, to provide for the common defense , and to regulate foreign and interstate commerce. This prevalent loose construction would vastly expand for a much different purpose—redistribution of the wealth—a century later in the New Deal of the 1930s. Some Virginians, including John Tyler and Philip Barbour, responded with Adam Smith's argument for international trade. Daniel Webster refuted many of Clay's ideas with his belief that all that was needed was to let free enterprise work. As the leading opponent of loose-constructionism, John C. Calhoun, in his famous Fort Hill address of 1831, introduced the doctrine of interposition. In reply to these critics, Clay stated that to save the American System, he would "defy the South, the President, and the devil" (75). His stubborn tactic here ran counter to the usual skills of "the Great Compromiser." Heated debate in the antebellum decades would soon become a leading factor in causing sectional emotions and Civil War. The tariff of 1833 could only delay the coming crises. Even the Northeast, which would have benefited most from the American System, opposed many of Clay's ideas. President Jackson's successful bank war against Clay and Webster is one of the best known impasses brought about by the American System. In this conflict, the Senate even endorsed Clay's resolution to censure Jackson for exceeding his constitutional powers. By 1841 the Whigs under Clay's leadership had lost their best opportunity to mobilize fully the American System. However, the Republican platform of 1 860, enacted during the Civil War, was a BOOK REVIEWS263 reaffirmation and expansion of Clay's economic hopes. The nation was firmly committed to a more sophisticated American System for the rest of the nineteenth century. What, then, is the value of Baxter's study? His goal is very specific—to examine Clay's leadership role in the passage and operation of the American System. At times the author's writing tends to become lackluster. Direct references to Clay's personality in a golden age of American politics would seem to be desirable, although outside the sphere ofBaxter's defined objective. Another weakness may be that Baxter's emphasis upon active governmental intervention can easily be misunderstood. The purpose of the American System was not to enlarge intentionally the role of national government for its own sake. Rather, the aim was to indirectly promote economic balance to strengthen the private sector. After all, the years of the American System probably more nearly approximated laissez-faire than any other era in our history. Arlan Gilbert Hillsdale College Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885. By Bernard E. Powers, Jr. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 266. $36.00.) There is no want...

Economic Interests and the Framing of the 1988 and 1992 Deomcratic and Republican Party Platforms

In this paper, the role that economic groups play in attempting to shape party platforms is examined by analyzing economic group presence at the 1988 and 1992 Democratic and Republican platform writing hearings. Whether the same economic groups participating as witnesses in the platform writing hearings also contributed to the presidential campaigns is also explored. The findings suggest that economic interest group participation varied widely between 1988 and 1992 and declined across years. Trade associations dominated economic group participation whereas labor unions did not take an active role. Business interests showed a strong preference for the Republicans in 1988 and reasonably equal interest in both parties the following year. The participatory decline among these groups may be explained by a growing perception that platforms are less effective as campaign guides and policy tools in an era dominated by candidate centered elections, split ticket voting and increasing independent identification, all indicators of decreasing reliance on the parties at the mass and elite levels.

Who Voted For Smoot-Hawley?

Apart from the Fugitive Slave Act, the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff bill is probably the most infamous piece of legislation in U.S. history. Despite Smoot-Hawley's notoriety, explanations for the bill's passage are scarce. Two of the best-known accounts are the early analysis of E. E. Schattschneider-who saw the bill as the result of out-of-control log-rolling-and the more recent account of Robert Pastor-who believes that the Republicans capitalized on their landslide victory in the 1928 elections to carry out their long-standing commitment to raising tariff rates across the board.' Barry Eichengreen's recent paper provides a thoughtful analysis of these earlier explanations and concludes by identifying the economic coalition he believes was responsible for passing the bill.2 Assessing the validity of these accounts is difficult, however, without an analysis of the actual vote on the bill. This article presents a simple model of the vote that can be used to distinguish between the various explanations of why Smoot-Hawley passed. Our results from estimating this model indicate, rather surprisingly, that contrary to Eichengreen's suggestions-and contrary to much other recent work that shows economic interests to be of great importance in explaining votes in Congress-Pastor's argument that Smoot-Hawley was the result of the Republicans implementing their 1928 party platform appears to be correct. There is not much dispute that the Republicans ran a strongly protariff campaign in 1928. Herbert Hoover had long been in favor of a protective tariff and as Secretary of Commerce in the Harding and Coolidge Administrations had espoused the view that the United States should largely confine its imports to those products that could not be produced domestically.3 Although Hoover focused on increases in agricultural duties during the campaign, the discussion of tariff revision in the 1928 Republican platform entailed broader increases:

Citizens' Groups and Political Parties in the United States

The relationship between political parties and citizens' groups in the United States contains elements of both competition and cooperation. Citizens' groups have the potential to compete with parties for individuals' loyalty, time, and money; for influence on the media's agenda; and for candidates' attention. In fact, voter attachment to the major parties began to decline just at the time that the number of citizens' groups was increasing, during the 1960s and 1970s. But other aspects of the parties either held their own or strengthened during this time. During the Reagan era, the increasingly ideological tone of national politics polarized both groups and parties and stimulated greater efforts at collaboration between them. Substantial conflict between groups and party leaders remains in the presidential nominating process, however, as can be seen in a case study of the 1992 Republican platform.

Democratic, Republican Platforms Address Science-Related Issues

Democratic, Republican Platforms Address Science-Related Issues

Item Veto: Dangerous Constitutional Tinkering

Throughout his two terms, former President Ronald Reagan supported the item veto as one solution to the federal budget deficits. The 1988 Republican Platform endorsed the concept and George Bush advocated it during the presidential campaign.1 The item veto has strong appeal to many others. It appears to be an incredibly simple way for the President to reduce appropriations bills. Presently, he is required to veto an entire bill in order to get at something he does not like. With the item veto, he would have the further option of eliminating only the objectionable part while leaving the balance of the appropriation intact.

Science and the Party Platforms: Thanks to direct input from scientists in the drafting process, the Republican platform contains detailed proposals for science; the Democratic platform offers few specifics

Science and the Party Platforms: Thanks to direct input from scientists in the drafting process, the Republican platform contains detailed proposals for science; the Democratic platform offers few specifics

Republican platform details stance on science

The 1988 Republican platform adopted earlier this month at the party's national convention in New Orleans is not only much, much longer than its Democratic counterpart (C&EN, Aug. 8, page 22), it is also much more specific. The platform spells out in detail not only what the party claims two Republican Administrations have accomplished over the past eight years, but what the next Republican Administration, if elected, will do to build on those accomplishments. Thus, the Democratic platform's short paragraph addressing the importance of research and development stands against a whole page, albeit one out of 104, entitled Science and Technology in the Republican platform. This is what that page says: Our nation's continuing progress depends on scientific and technological innovation. It is America's economic fountain of youth. Republicans advocate a creative partnership between government and the private sector to ensure the dynamism and creativity of scientific research and technology: • We recognize t...

Republican Party Platform Differs Markedly from Democratic

The Republican Party platform that emerged from the recent Dallas convention is, as could only be expected, a reaffirmation of many of the Administration's present policies. It offers striking contrasts to the Democratic platform (C&EN, Aug. 6, page 13), but there is at least one area of agreement—both contain kind words about research and development. In a section labeled science and technology, the Republican platform says, pledge to continue the Reagan Administration's science and technology policies, which have enhanced economic recovery and our nation's research capability. We have refocused federal research and development programs on basic research and it has increased more than 50%. We propose to extend the incremental research and development tax credit to stimulate greater activity in the private sector. To allow U.S. firms to compete on an equal footing with foreign companies, we will permit U.S. firms to cooperate in joint research and development efforts. As can be seen, the ...

Environmental Policy in the Reagan Presidency

The Reagan administration is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most effective presidencies in recent history. At least in domestic policy, President Reagan has accomplished greater change in less time than any administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt's hundred days. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of pQlicy, where the administration has tried to reverse a cycle begun fifteen years ago. Notwithstanding intense opposition from organizations, Congress, and the public, leading to the forced resignations of his top officials during 1983, Ronald Reagan has set federal regulation on a new course in the 1980s. 1 Few would have predicted such dramatic change prior to 1981. Despite Reagan's longstanding antipathy to regulation, his espousal of the sagebrush rebellion in the late 1970s, and a mandate from the 1980 Republican platform to review the costs and benefits of existing programs, most observers assumed that Reagan's agenda for regulatory relief would be blunted by strong public support for protection. Both the Carter administration and Congress had shown increasing interest in use of cost-benefit analysis to improve the efficiency of programs, but neither had questioned the basic premises and goals of the environmental decade of the 1970s. By 1980

The Reagan Administration and Revolutions in Central America

Recent U.S. presidents have won office less for having proved their talent in governing than for an ability to soothe. These presidents have resembled clergy welcomed by a tragedy-stricken family. Richard Nixon's mysterious plan for peace helped him defeat Vietnam-tarred ticket led by Hubert Humphrey. Jimmy Carter's non-Washington background seemed a welcome relief after chicanery of Watergate and Nixon pardon. Ronald Reagan offered both congeniality (a welcome contrast to Carter's up-tight insecurity) and a soothing traditionalism that promised triumph of nation's past over complexities of its future. In no foreign policy area has Reagan's traditionalism been more apparent than in America. And no area needed more attention. His ambassador to United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, warned in early 1981 that Central America is most important place in world for United States today. Many North Americans seemed to share that view, at least in 1980. Reagan consequently ran on a Republican platform that deplored the Marxist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and Marxist attempts to destabilize El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The plank condemned Carter's offer of aid to Nicaraguans. The platform then warned of possible future action: However, we [Republicans] will support efforts of Nicaraguan people to establish a free and independent government.' Arguing that foreign devils and ideologies were to blame for Nicaraguan troubles, these words ignored reality. If

Computer-aided content analysis: A short primer

This paper is a short introduction to computer-aided content analysis in which words or phrases are the basic units. The advantages of computer-aided content analysis are noted and some general issues in its use discussed. Several ways of manipulating text by computer are then illustrated, including ordered word frequency lists, key-word-in-context lists, concordances, classifications of text in terms of content categories, category counts, and category-based retrievals from text. Although examples are based on Democratic and Republican platforms in presidential campaigns, these techniques can be applied to texts from a variety of sources, including in-depth and open-ended interviews, fieldnotes, letters, speeches, newspapers, books, and diaries, to cite a few examples.

The ERA Won—At Least in the Opinion Polls

In 1972 it appeared that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would be ratified quickly. Support was forthcoming from a vast array of political leaders, such as President Nixon, past presidents, governors and legislators. Both major parties made the amendment part of their platforms and did so again in 1976. An impressive list of private organizations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women and many labor organizations, supported the amendment. Opposition was confined to groups of limited political effectiveness, such as the John Birch Society, George Wallace's American Independent Party and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).During the years immediately following congressional approval of the ERA in 1972, the American public strongly favored the amendment (see Table 1). In 1974, three Americans favored the ERA for every one who opposed it. Support for the ERA continued at a ratio of about two to one throughout the early ratification years. Support was widespread among all demographic groups. In 1975-76, the Gallup Poll found that even within groups where opposition to the ERA was strongest a majority supported ratification. Specifically, persons with low incomes favored it 53 percent to 31 percent and those living in small towns supported it 54 percent to 29 percent.Only in 1980—eight years after the ERA was submitted to the states for ratification—did support dip down to its lowest level. This represented a second phase for the ERA—the 1980 presidential campaign-during which the amendment was transformed by candidate Ronald Reagan into a partisan issue and removed from the Republican platform.

The ERA Won—At Least in the Opinion Polls

In 1972 it appeared that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would be ratified quickly. Support was forthcoming from a vast array of political leaders, such as President Nixon, past presidents, governors and legislators. Both major parties made the amendment part of their platforms and did so again in 1976. An impressive list of private organizations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women and many labor organizations, supported the amendment. Opposition was confined to groups of limited political effectiveness, such as the John Birch Society, George Wallace's American Independent Party and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).During the years immediately following congressional approval of the ERA in 1972, the American public strongly favored the amendment (see Table 1). In 1974, three Americans favored the ERA for every one who opposed it. Support for the ERA continued at a ratio of about two to one throughout the early ratification years. Support was widespread among all demographic groups. In 1975-76, the Gallup Poll found that even within groups where opposition to the ERA was strongest a majority supported ratification. Specifically, persons with low incomes favored it 53 percent to 31 percent and those living in small towns supported it 54 percent to 29 percent.Only in 1980—eight years after the ERA was submitted to the states for ratification—did support dip down to its lowest level. This represented a second phase for the ERA—the 1980 presidential campaign-during which the amendment was transformed by candidate Ronald Reagan into a partisan issue and removed from the Republican platform.

The ERA Won—At Least in the Opinion Polls

In 1972 it appeared that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would be ratified quickly. Support was forthcoming from a vast array of political leaders, such as President Nixon, past presidents, governors and legislators. Both major parties made the amendment part of their platforms and did so again in 1976. An impressive list of private organizations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women and many labor organizations, supported the amendment. Opposition was confined to groups of limited political effectiveness, such as the John Birch Society, George Wallace's American Independent Party and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).During the years immediately following congressional approval of the ERA in 1972, the American public strongly favored the amendment (see Table 1). In 1974, three Americans favored the ERA for every one who opposed it. Support for the ERA continued at a ratio of about two to one throughout the early ratification years. Support was widespread among all demographic groups. In 1975-76, the Gallup Poll found that even within groups where opposition to the ERA was strongest a majority supported ratification. Specifically, persons with low incomes favored it 53 percent to 31 percent and those living in small towns supported it 54 percent to 29 percent.Only in 1980—eight years after the ERA was submitted to the states for ratification—did support dip down to its lowest level. This represented a second phase for the ERA—the 1980 presidential campaign-during which the amendment was transformed by candidate Ronald Reagan into a partisan issue and removed from the Republican platform.

Writing the Republican Platform

The Preamble of the 1976 Republican platform begins: are about to read the 1976 Republican platform. We hope you will also find time to read the Democratic platform. Compare. You will see basic differences in how the two parties propose to represent you. Comparison of the two platforms yields interesting evidence of the differences between the two major political parties. Though party platforms seldom deal explicitly or in great detail with some of the more salient issues facing the American electorate, they do often point up basic philosophical and ideological differences between the parties. In addition, studying the process by which the parties arrive at their platforms often provides keys to understanding the parties themselves-their composition, their rules and norms, and their leadership and leadership strategies. The differences between the Democratic and Republican platform-writing processes were pronounced in 1976. Some of those differences reflected events peculiar to that particular election year. For example, by the time the Democrats held their convention, Jimmy Carter had the Democratic presidential nomination locked up. In contrast, the Republican nomination was still closely contested when the Republicans held their convention in August. As a result, it was a clear possibility that the platform might become a battleground between President Ford and Governor Reagan, two candidates of somewhat different ideological bent. At the same time, since it was not clear which candidate would be the nominee, neither candidate's organization wanted to go far out on a limb to battle for specific issues in the platform at the risk of alienating the party or the electorate.

Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860.

At first a voice in the wilderness, then the rallying cry of a new morality, abolitionism became the springboard to power of a major national party. Ballots for Freedom recapitulates the political war against slavery, from the first debates over the creation of an abolitionist third party to the election of Abraham Lincoln on an essentially antislavery Republican platform.