Dems give Madrid a seat at the table
ALBUQUERQUE -- Barack Obama has made “opening up the political process” a major theme of his campaign. As part of that strategy, the party has changed the way it creates its official platform, giving virtually everyone who wanted one a “seat at the table” at more than 1,300 community meetings in all 50 states. Former New Mexico Attorney General and 2006 congressional candidate Patricia Madrid will be sitting at the head table, as a vice-chair of the platform drafting committee.
In the past, the party held several hearings across the country, allowing for public input, but the platform was largely drafted in private. But in Albuquerque last Friday, more than 50 people attended a four-and-a-half-hour-long platform committee meeting at the Plumbers and Steam Fitters Hall. The result of the meeting was a document of bullet points covering everything from the economy and government to civil liberties and the environment. For example, from the economy section:
—Adopt public policies that reduce gross economic inequalities.
—Create federal labeling regulations (country of origin, genetically modified materials) so that consumers can make smarter decisions about purchasing.
—Legalize the growing of hemp.
The document has been forwarded to the committee for review.
“Hemp? I have a feeling that’s probably not going to make it into the platform,” former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid says. Madrid was in Cleveland this weekend, where the committee received formal presentations from experts and issues advocates, then met to review the results of the community meetings and write up an initial draft. The full committee, about 180 members in all, will then meet in Pittsburgh on Saturday (August 9) to finalize the draft.
“The platform defines what it is to be a Democrat,” Madrid says. “This is a document that will give a statement of what Obama is about and what he intends to do. We want it to be a document that will bring people together and reflect who we think we are.” To bring that to a point, Madrid uses the Bush administration as an example. “How many times have you asked yourself—with the torture, doing away with habeas corpus, ruining our shores—how many times have you thought: 'Does this reflect who we are?'”
Once the platform is drafted, it can be used as a reference point for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. But the party does not force candidates to agree with every plank. “We’ve had a number of candidates run who weren’t pro-choice or had different ideas on energy. It’s just a blueprint, a guide,” she says.
So why should we care? According to Madrid, “A lot of people don’t even start paying attention until after Labor Day. Then they say, ‘I don’t know who Obama is.’ Well this is a simple document they can use to find out.” Most people probably won't download a 40-page document to figure out who to vote for, but the official platforms of both parties end up distilled into many newspapers' voting guides, and the major points of the platforms are the subjects volleyed back and forth at the candidates' debates.
Madrid says she was surprised when Howard Dean called her in January to say he was nominating her to the committee. “At the time there were three major presidential candidates and we were all three attached to the campaigns,” she says. Madrid had been on Sen. Edwards’ national finance committee; the other two vice-chairs are Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a close friend of Sen. Obama, and TV executive Judith McHale, who was a prominent Clinton supporter. The committee is led by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a frequently-mentioned possibility for VP.
"From the beginning, we said we were going bring down the traditional walls of the Democratic Convention and make this event more accessible and include as many people as possible," Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean said in a press release. As a former community organizer, Obama knows that giving voters a stake in the process gets them invested in the outcome.
The local platform drafting meetings are part of that larger strategy to motivate Democrats who maybe wouldn’t normally be so motivated. “I’ve been to the last four conventions,” Madrid says, “and what happens is that the nominee does his speech and you have to have credentials to be on the floor and it’s maybe 15,000 to 20,000 people, limited to party insiders, or people who have some sort of in. Well Obama opened that up to 80,000 people just to give almost anyone who wants to come an opportunity to come and hear him.”
The convention will be held at the Pepsi Center in Denver, which holds about 20,000 people. But the party has scheduled its last day of programming, when Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination, to take place at Denver’s INVESCO Field at Mile High—home of the Denver Broncos—which can accommodate more than 75,000 people.
Obama’s rally in Portland earlier this year, in front of 75,0000, opened him up to criticism that he was behaving more like a rock star than a president, a criticism reflected again in the recent McCain ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. A spokesman for the Republican National Committee called the INVESCO Field plan “stagecraft and theatrics.
After the convention, Madrid says she’ll be campaigning hard for Obama. After the election, she’s open to taking a job with an Obama administration. Responding to the question “How does Patricia Madrid, U.S. Attorney General sound to you,” Madrid says “It sounds great!” while acknowledging that it’s a long shot. “If I got [a position], that would be great, but if I don’t go to Washington, I like being in New Mexico.”
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