Word: platformate
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Boldface Type. Symbols of unity and progress napped like so many ensigns at fleet review. Barry Goldwater sounded like a man from the N.A.A.C.P. New York's John Lindsay agreed to second Agnew's nomination rather than serve as the rallying point for opposition to it. The platform, the keynote address, Nixon's acceptance speech and the subsidiary verbiage were on the whole impeccably progressive in tone, promising jobs, justice, education and a "piece of the action" to the poor, peace in Viet Nam, honorable conciliation with the Communists...
Those who wanted to could find less obvious signals bearing a slightly different message. Only one sentence in the platform's domestic-policy section appeared in boldface type: "We will not tolerate violence!" Somehow Nixon manages to sound more forceful and specific in emphasizing the need for law and order than in pleading for social justice. The targets of his acceptance speech are the "forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators." They are "good people. They're decent people. They work and they save and they pay their taxes and they care...
...convention begins the long process of deciding what kind of organism a party chooses to make of itself in an election year. It labels two men the most qualified of all to govern and lead the nation. It provides a platform that, even though frequently ignored, can indicate the party's direction. It can set a tone and a mood that either help or hurt its ticket...
Senator Everett Dirksen, Platform Committee chairman, set out to write a "pungent" document that "any Republican can run on." It was obviously being molded, however, with Richard Nixon's shoe size in mind. All sides represented on the committee seemed determined to avoid the acrimony of 1964. Yet the proceedings, along with other recent discussions, outlined the party's options on the year's two major issues, Viet Nam and domestic upheaval...
...Viet Nam, California's Governor Ronald Reagan stood pretty much alone among prominent party men defending the hard line. He pooh-poohed the Paris peace talks as primarily Communist propaganda. He questioned the bombing limitation over North Viet Nam. In the text of his remarks before the Platform Committee, he underlined his hope that "we will fight...