6/20/00 3:30 p.m.
The Pablum Platform
The GOP tacks to the center.

By Thomas Gnau, reporter for The Middletown (Ohio) Journal

t's a good thing the Sinclair Community College auditorium was dotted with red-white-and-blue elephant logos at Monday's Republican National Committee policy hearing. Someone not listening too closely might have mistaken the gathering for a Democratic festival of good feelings.

But then, even someone paying attention could have made the same mistake.

There were the "experts" complaining about "135,000 pages" of Medicare rules and regulations in one breath, and in the next, calling for Medicare coverage of prescription drugs and a "new role for government."

"The people who administer our Medicare program are good, talented people," Dr. Robert Waller, chairman of the Healthcare Leadership Council, told representatives of the Republican platform committee. "It's the system that needs repair."

There was Dayton Mayor Mike Turner, a Republican, telling the committee that brownfield restoration is a problem that "really does need a federally-created solution."

And there was the chief executive officer of a local machining business, asking the Republican Party for more money — for education and training to produce the skilled workers his industry desperately needs.

All of these ideas were offered irony-free, of course. That must have been why they were so fun to hear. The platform committee representatives — Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, among others — were from the government, after all. They must have been there to help.

They were in Dayton, in fact, to listen to invited local speakers offer thoughts as the GOP drafts its platform for the next four years. Another forum will be held in Billings, Montana, for the same reason.

As it grows kinder and gentler, the Grand Old Party is also reaching out in a new way. There are plans for an Internet hearing, online chats and a "special e-mail address for communication directly with committee leadership and staff," an RNC press release said.

"This is just the beginning of an unprecedented effort to seek input from anyone who would like to be heard," RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson promised.

At one point Monday, television personality and author Art Linkletter — who was on the panel of experts waxing thoughtful on Medicare — shared a story of an elderly lady to whom he gave his photo. "Do you know who I am?" Linkletter asked the woman.

"No," she replied. "But if you go to the front desk, they'll tell you."

The GOP may want to take that advice. It seems to be stretching a tad left as the convention approaches. During Monday's Medicare forum, there was nary a word on individual medical-care savings accounts, an idea whose time never quite arrived, apparently.

One can make the case that this is what political parties do in election. years. They head to the center ever so carefully, smiling sweetly all the way. Bill Clinton signed welfare reform in 1996, you'll recall. This year he went to Moscow defending his version of the strategic defense initiative.

But if the party wants to take on a new image, doing it in Dayton makes sense. Some see Ohio as a swing state, and Montgomery County — where Dayton is the county seat — as a swing county. As Turner said, 11 of the last 13 presidents have won Montgomery County. "The bottom line is: We wanted to come to the Midwest," RNC spokeswoman Ginny Wolfe told me.

There were hints of conservatism here and there during Monday's meeting. But they were aimed mostly at sustaining what Gov. George W. Bush has called the most successful government program ever.

Actually, the forum on Social Security was the best of the day. That's because it focused on the best idea of the last three — and arguably four — presidential elections: giving Americans the freedom to invest a bit of their Social Security taxes in stocks or bonds.

Never mind that no one dared utter the word "privatization." The word du jour was "personalization," borrowed from Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey.

But the Social Security forum was still where conservative speakers got their moment before the mike. Michael Baroody told the committee that the National Association of Manufacturers, of which he is a senior vice president, is traditionally nonpartisan.

"But I'm not," said Baroody, the editor in chief of the GOP's 1980 platform, on which Reagan campaigned and won.

All agreed it's time to get serious about what was once the untouchable third rail. In 2015, the program will begin running cash deficits. By 2037, bankruptcy is foreseen. Maya MacGuineas, 32, a board member of the youth-focused Third Millennium, knows this all too well.

If something doesn't change, those under 30 can expect returns from Social Security "in the neighborhood of one to two percent," she said.

Rep. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, praised Bush's plan up and down, celebrating Bush's promise that, once in office, the "days of delay, dividing and demagoguing" on Social Security would be over.

And Portman had fun with Gore's latest retirement "plan," $200 billion for individual accounts. "It has nothing to do with Social Security," he said, adding: "Of course, it's a huge new retirement program."

That's the spirit. Maybe if Gore loudly supports Medicare coverage of prescriptions, Republican experts will reconsider. Maybe.