CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, USA (Sept. 3, 2012) – Today the Democratic National Committee
announced that it has posted online the 2012 Democratic Party Platform,
which will be officially adopted by the Delegates to the Convention Tuesday, September 4. The Party Platform articulates clearly
President Obama’s vision for moving our country forward by restoring
economic security and building an economy that is built to last.
The Democratic Party Platform reflects President Obama’s vision for
the future. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, led by Mitt Romney and Paul
Ryan, approved a platform that supports the same top-down economic
policies that hurt the middle class and embraces extreme positions on
issues and policies from Medicare to immigration to women’s health.
In July, the Platform Drafting Committee, chaired by former Governor
Ted Strickland, met in Minneapolis to receive input from the public and
to write the first draft of the Platform. Then on August 11, members of
the Platform Committee, chaired by Mayor Cory Booker and retired Lt.
Gen. Claudia Kennedy, met in Detroit. At the Platform Committee Meeting
in Detroit, committee members submitted amendments to the draft Platform
before unanimously approving the draft and sending it to Charlotte for
the vote by delegates tomorrow.
You can read the Democratic Platform HERE.
Below please find excerpts from the Preamble of the Platform, which lays out the President’s vision for our country.
Moving America Forward
“Four years ago, Democrats, independents, and many Republicans came
together as Americans to move our country forward. We were in the midst
of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the previous
administration had put two wars on our nation’s credit card, and the
American Dream had slipped out of reach for too many.
“Today, our economy is growing again, al-Qaeda is weaker than at any
point since 9/11, and our manufacturing sector is growing for the first
time in more than a decade. But there is more we need to do, and so we
come together again to continue what we started. We gather to reclaim
the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most
prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard
work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of
us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.
“This election is not simply a choice between two candidates or two
political parties, but between two fundamentally different paths for our
country and our families.
“We Democrats offer America the opportunity to move our country
forward by creating an economy built to last and built from the middle
out. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party have a drastically different
vision. They still believe the best way to grow the economy is from the
top down – the same approach that benefited the wealthy few but crashed
the economy and crushed the middle class…
“The Republican Party has turned its back on the middle class
Americans who built this country. Our opponents believe we should go
back to the top-down economic policies of the last decade. They think
that if we simply eliminate protections for families and consumers, let
Wall Street write its own rules again, and cut taxes for the wealthiest,
the market will solve all our problems on its own. They argue that if
we help corporations and wealthy investors maximize their profits by
whatever means necessary, whether through layoffs or outsourcing, it
will automatically translate into jobs and prosperity that benefits us
all. They would repeal health reform, turn Medicare into a voucher
program, and follow the same path of fiscal irresponsibility of the past
administration – giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts weighted
towards millionaires and billionaires while sticking the middle class
with the bill. But we’ve tried their policies – and we’ve all suffered
when they failed…
“The problems we’re facing right now have been more than a decade in
the making. We are the party of inclusion and respect differences of
perspective and belief. And so, even when we disagree, we work together
to move this country forward. But what is holding our nation back is a
stalemate in Washington between two fundamentally different views of
which direction America should take.
“We must keep moving forward and doing the hard work of rebuilding a
strong economy by betting on the American worker and investing in a
growing middle class.”