This year the battles are being won from the grassroots up to the
state conventions. I just got back from the Washington State
Republican Platform Committee hearing in Olympia, in preparation for
the state convention at the end of the month. I am the the delegate
to that committee from my county. The process is not constructed to
take, as input, the platforms constructed by the counties. For
example, in our county a coalition of Ron Paul supporters and vets of
Korea, Viet Nam and Iraq replaced the "War on Terror" and "Patriot
Act" plank with a demand for a "Strict Constitutional Declaration of
War by The People via their Representatives".
I won't go into all of the interesting interactions during the hearing
but I will say that the chair agreed to put the following in the
preamble:
"Republican principles support diversity by localizing authority over
the most divisive issues. Respecting honest and strongly held
differences of opinion, this allows the people greater voice in, and
choice of, approaches to these divisive issues within a unified
Federation."
