7/31/00 11:20 a.m.
Tommy Thompson, Buffoon
Don't give him credit for the end product.

By Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor

ecause the Republican platform turned out alright, for both the Bush campaign and conservatives, Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson will probably be considered an effective and smart platform chairman. He shouldn't be.

Almost as soon as Thompson was named platform chairman — perhaps as a consolation prize for the fact that, for various reasons, he could not be considered seriously as a vice-presidential candidate — he made his first mistake: telling the press that the platform would reflect George W. Bush's preferences to the letter. This was a threefold blunder: It conflicted with the official story that the platform emerged from a bottom-up, democratic process; it made Bush responsible for every provision of the platform; and it wasn't true, since Bush couldn't be guaranteed to prevail on every platform fight against conservative delegates.

As it turned out, the Bush campaign and conservatives were at odds with each other less often than both were with Thompson. Again and again, Gov. Thompson tried to pull the platform left against the wishes of both. Thompson wanted to exclude language favoring the public posting of the Ten Commandments, even though the Bush campaign did not object; the delegates insisted that it be kept. He wanted to omit a sentence opposing the prohibition of discrimination against homosexuals; the Bush campaign had no objection and the delegates put the sentence in the platform. Ditto for a sentence defending freedom of association for the Boy Scouts.

On Internet taxation, the platform took George W. Bush's position: support for a five-year moratorium on taxes that single out e-commerce, and silence on the ultimate resolution of the issue. Thompson wanted the platform to endorse such taxes, and raised the issue in a televised hearing. He prevailed in having the platform endorse a national rail system — again, contrary to the delegates and to Bush.

Thompson's worst mistake, however, came on Friday evening. The platform committee was debating a provision acknowledging that abortion was a complex issue on which people of good will could disagree. Anti-abortion activists vehemently opposed the provision, reasoning that since the same thing could be said about almost any public-policy position, the only purpose of the provision would be to signal that the party was not serious about this particular position.

Everyone knows that abortion politics is a minefield that has to be navigated especially carefully. What Thompson did was to split the provision into two halves and then present them so confusingly that delegates thought they were voting against them when they were really voting for them. The provisions passed, and Ann Stone of Republicans for Choice went out to the hallway to declare victory.

Bush campaign staffers tried to signal Thompson to call a recess so they could fix his mistake, but he kept going. Eventually Mississippi congressman Chip Pickering offered a motion to reconsider one of the provisions. After some procedural tumult, the provisions were taken out again. Every time during the process that the parliamentarian sustained one of Thompson's rulings, the governor grandly proclaimed, "So the chair was right." The upshot: The platform committee spent 30 to 40 extra minutes debating abortion quite unnecessarily. Bush staffers were uttering some choice phrases about Thompson, then explaining that they were "on background" — not that I could print them here in any case.

Heart of Stone
After the provisions were taken out, Ann Stone told the press that proponents of legal abortion had been "shut out" again (i.e., defeated). "We were welcome for ten minutes," she said. (By the next day, she was alleging dark parliamentary plots to undo her victory.) She said, however, that it was all worth it to see Phyllis Schlafly come close to having "a heart attack."