Subject: GOP Platform Will Be Attack on Dukakis 
Date: Published: 8/12/88 106 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Campaign '88:  
    GOP Platform Will Be Attack on Dukakis
    And an Outline of a Conservative Stance
    ----  
    By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and David Shribman
    Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

    NEW ORLEANS -- The Republicans' platform is shaping up to
 be as much an assault on the policies of Michael Dukakis and
 his Democratic Party as it is an outline of a conservative
 philosophy.
    The 106-member platform panel is expected to put the
 finishing touches on the platform today, getting it ready for
 approval by the Republican National Convention here next
 week.  After a week of deliberations, the committee was making
 few changes in a staff draft that had the solid imprint of
 the party's conservative wing but that, unlike the party's
 1984 version, also reflects Vice President George Bush's
 efforts to make some limited gestures to the party's
 moderates.
    The 30,000-word document amply meets Mr. Bush's goal of
 providing a specific blueprint on which to base his fall
 presidential campaign.  It is far more detailed, and more than
 seven times longer, than the thematic and purposefully vague
 document the Democrats produced last month at their
 convention in Atlanta.
    But Mr. Bush is likely to run into some of the problems
 the Democrats sought to avoid when they steered clear of
 specific policy statements.  By including a paragraph from
 almost every GOP constituency group -- and some language for
 groups that the party hopes will come under its umbrella -- 
 the Republicans are vulnerable to charges that they are
 pandering, an accusation that they usually lob at the
 Democrats.
    In addition, the Republican platform promises so much to
 so many -- restoration of tax breaks for independent oil and
 gas drillers, deployment of the "Star Wars" anti-missile
 defense as soon as possible, a refundable tax credit for
 child care, a drastic cut in estate taxes -- that the
 promises don't square with other elements of the platform
 that pledge a lean government and a balanced budget.
    And while the GOP criticizes the Democrats for their
 vagueness, the Republican platform's chief budget-balancing
 instrument -- Mr. Bush's "flexible freeze" -- is no less
 vague.  Mr. Bush has refused to say where he would make cuts
 under the plan.  And given his adamant opposition to a tax
 increase and advocacy of big military budgets, many experts
 say he will have to reduce such politically sensitive social
 programs as Medicare if he is to meet his fiscal goals.
    Throughout the week of debates, the platform committee
 labored under the guiding hand of Bush operatives who
 succeeded in crafting a conservative, though not extreme,
 position paper.  The Bush forces defeated efforts to weaken
 language on such emotional issues as opposition to abortion
 and avoided harsh language on AIDS. 
    For the third consecutive time, the GOP platform won't
 call for the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment.  Although
 the party noted its "historic commitment to equal rights for
 women," it came out against the concept of "comparable worth"
 where jobs traditionally held by women are deemed to have the
 same value as others traditionally held by men.
    But the party makes specific overtures to a number of
 groups ranging from "Americans with disabilities" and Native
 Americans to Hawaiians and residents of Guam.
    The document avoids mentioning Mr. Dukakis by name but is
 peppered with references to what it disparages as the
 "Democrat Party" or "liberal Democrats."
    The platform ascribes a wide array of governmental, fiscal
 and social ills to the Democrats.  These include a massive
 federal government, poor schools, the farm crisis, the high
 cost of health care and even homelessness.  "Homelessness
 demonstrates the failure of liberalism," the platform says.
    The Republicans use the platform to buttress their
 "pro-family" image and to seek to prevent their rivals from
 usurping the issue.  "We seek to strengthen the family," the
 platform says.  "Democrats try to supplant it.  In the 1960s
 and 1970s the family bore the brunt of liberal attacks on
 everything the American people cherished.  Our whole society
 paid dearly."
    The platform bids voters to "remember the Carter-Mondale
 years," adding:  "The Democrats would drag us back to those
 earnings, consumers of their spending power and families of
 their savings."
    In an effort to blunt Democratic charges that the
 Reagan-Bush years have been rife with Republican corruption,
 the platform takes aim at the Democratic-controlled Congress,
 particularly the House ethics committee.  The committee,
 according to the platform, "has become a shield for Democrats
 who get caught but don't get punished."
    The document also seeks to portray the Democrats as
 doomsayers, even as the economy burgeons.  "The ideological
 heirs of Carter and Mondale are trying again to sell the
 public a false bill of goods," the platform says.  "These
 liberals call America's prosperity an illusion.  They
 fantasize our economy is declining.  They claim our future is
 in the hands of other nations.  They aren't operating in the
 real world."

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