As Ed Kilgore notes, Republicans are arguing over what will and won't be in the party platform that will be accepted in Cleveland. And as we've all heard, Bernie Sanders and his supporters have been haggling over the Democratic platform. My question is "Why?"
Does anybody govern or even really campaign over what's in the party platform? Does anyone even read it? When Bob Dole was the G.O.P. nominee, he famously said he hadn't. Do we expect either Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton to actually do anything because it's in their party's platform? I can't recall that ever happening. I don't know why Senator Sanders expended any of his political capital in forcing things into the platform.
I wish the platform did reflect the candidate's positions because at least we could read them there. I don't know as much about what Hillary would do as prez as I'd like. In the case of Donald, he says things, then walks them back or denies he said them. Wouldn't it be nice to have his positions and promises in writing and in clear language?
But at each convention, the platform will be discussed and debated and some people will get furious and threaten to walk out if this is in or that isn't. Then each nominee will vow to campaign on it and uphold its provisions and then everyone will ignore it and do whatever they want. I am not being facetious here. Well, I'm not being any more facetious than I usually am. I really don't understand why parties even have platforms if everyone treats them like the user agreement for iTunes.