The Obama campaign appointed Michael Yaki, a lawyer and former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to be their national platform director.
In a phone interview interview today, Yaki said that the platform drafters went out of their way to bridge the differences that "divided the Clinton and Obama campaigns," and on planks describing health care policies, "we included the voice of Sen. Clinton on the issues that she cared about." Yaki points to the inclusion of phrases like the "Sandwhich generation," which Clinton used to refer to adults talking care of both their children and their parents, and "the invisibles," the phrase
In a phone interview today, Yaki said that the platform drafters went out of their way to bridge the differences that "divided the Clinton and Obama campaigns," on planks like health care, "we included the voice of Sen. Clinton on the issues that she cared about." Yaki points to the inclusion of phrases like the "Sandwich generation," which Clinton used to refer to adults talking care of both their children and their parents, and "the invisibles," the phrase Clinton used to refer to structural deficits in the economy that rendered Americans invisible to government statistics and government programs.
Getting the 54-page document in order was made more difficult by the truncated primary season. The platform group convened more than 1,600 meetings attended by more than 30,000 Democrats, and Yaki says that he's still reading through their suggestions.
It's no accident that much of the language was drafted to address the concerns of the average American living in the Rust Belt -- home to economically depressed states.
"The most common phrases we found in the energy area... People were saying, with regard to changing our energy policy, 'We need a quote Manhattan project or a quote Apollo to the moon project,'" Yaki said. "People envision that government has a much stronger role in solving the energy crisis for the future."
I asked Yaki how the 2008 platform differed from the 2004 platform. "I would say that it's action-oriented, much more about movement and action. We talk about the New Deal and the New Frontier, both examples of trying to take America boldly in a different direction."
In other words -- very much like the 1992 platform -- Bill Clinton's platform.
Tomorrow, the final ratification process begins in Pittsburgh. The final product will be sent to Denver for ratification by the entire convention.
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