The Iowa GOP platform, more outrageous than ever

COMMENTARY | May 31, 2012
 
Up for adoption soon, the platform, with 400 planks, is so extreme that an op ed in the Des Moines Register carried the headline, “A letter to the good people of Iowa: Are you crazy?” Aside from that column, however, a check showed no news coverage by the three largest newspapers in the state.


By Herb Strentz

 

Like Jack Torrance, the crazed axe wielder played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the Iowa Republican party platform is ‘BAAAAAACK!” And, like its predecessors over the past decade or so, the draft of the 2012 platform is every bit off its rocker as Jack.

 

The platform will be up for worship and adoption at the Iowa Republican state convention on June 16. “Worship” is a good word, given the domination of the Iowa GOP by evangelical zealots and the platform’s homage to their takes on Christian doctrine.