I haven't written candidate diaries. I explain why in this essay at another site. But who really cares why I haven't written a candidate diary? There's plenty of them already, heh.
I have said many times I am no political expert. Like many Kossacks, I'm just a regular citizen who has been driven to political blogging because our country has been so badly abused by this misAdministration and no one in the media has consistently reported anything about that.
But now we have the frenzy of the primaries and all the folks looking at all the different candidates to see which one will make the best leader.
What interests me these days (among other things) is just what the Democratic Party is up to when it comes to a party platform.
Of course, I want comprehensive Gulf Coast recovery to be part of that platform. I would also like to see comprehensive and progressive immigration reform (on this level) as part of that platform.
Yeah, like what I want is going to be on the platform, ha ha ha ha.
Nonetheless.
I did a very quick search about this and found some information about the Democratic party platform:
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is responsible for promoting Democratic campaign activities. While the DNC is responsible for overseeing the process of writing the Democratic Platform, the DNC is more focused on campaign and organizational strategy than public policy. In presidential elections it supervises the Democratic National Convention. The national convention is, subject to the charter of the party, the ultimate authority within the Democratic Party when it is in session, with the DNC running the party's organization at other times. The DNC is currently chaired by former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.
So the DNC is responsible for "overseeing the process" of writing the Democratic Platform. Who, I wonder, is involved in that process? Is there any possibility at all that we in the netroots could be part of that process?
Is it perhaps time to talk about our party's platform and what it should be?
I seek knowledge about this and admit my ignorance in this area.
I would appreciate anyone sharing information about the process of coming up with the Democratic Party Platform. Is it something that doesn't begin until after we have a Democratic nominee? That doesn't seem to make sense to me - I'd think that at the Democratic Convention there would already be some kind of platform in place. Has the Platform already been pretty much set by now?
I know there are political junkies here who can help me understand this process, and how, if at all, the netroots can have any meaningful influence. My guess is that since Howard Dean/DNC has been emailing us regularly asking what we find to be important issues, that is some kind of input we are allowed, but I'm looking for something a little more comprehensive.
And for those who are interested, what would you like to see in our Platform?