One of the principal Republican talking points on health care in 2010 was that the Affordable Care Act must be awful — it’s written on a lot of pages.
In 2011, Herman Cain took this sentiment to the next logical level during his presidential campaign, promising voters, “I am only going to allow small bills — three pages.”
Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) kept this line of thinking alive, calling for a shorter platform.
“If it were up to me, I’d have a platform on one sheet of paper,” said Boehner during a media lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. He added: “Have you ever met anybody who has read the party platform? I’ve never met anybody.”
A change might make it more attractive to Americans, he added. “We ought to have a one page party platform, that way Americans might actually read it.”
I can see the slogans now: “Vote Republican: We Won’t Burden You With Lots Of Words Or Depth.”
Isn’t the idea of a platform to offer the public some kind of blueprint of what a party intends to do if given power? It’s not a blog post; there’s nothing wrong with going into detail.
As for the platform itself, Molly Redden had a good piece on leaked drafts of the platform, and highlighted six of the “most curious” items in the document (which, thankfully, runs more than one page). It’s worth a look.
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