Saturday, August 30, 2008

Advice from Groucho Marx for Reading the Major Parties' Platforms

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

(I have not been able to track down the exact source where Groucho is supposed to have said this. But it sure sounds like something he’d say, and I've never read it attributed to anyone else. In any case, it certainly fits the situation the electorate has endured probably since the Democrats issued the first party platform in 1840: that is, promises that bear little if any relationship to the views of the party nominee, or what he (or she) might do if lucky enough to win election.)

2 comments:

bjn2727 said...

Lets be fair about this. I would say that you comment bears equal weight with the Republicans as well. Heck...Politics as a whole!
And long before 1840 for that matter.

Groucho for the Republicans:

Yesterday I saw an elephant in my pajamas.
How he got into my pajamas I will never know!

MikeT said...

Dear B,

This IS being fair. The point of my piece is, precisely, that both parties are guilty of creating party platforms that are ignored. I think you misread the post.

Note the headline: it refers to "the Major Parties' Platforms"--not the Democrats, not the Republicans. The TWO parties. I.e, BOTH are at fault.

The reference to the Democrats in the piece is to "the first party platform." That's the first party platform EVER, that ANY major party had produced.

Had I wanted to criticize the Democrats exclusively, I would have written that it fits the situation "the electorate has endured FROM THE DEMOCRATS SINCE THEY issued THEIR first platform in 1840." The second item I wrote just now is what you THINK I wrote, not what I did. There's a difference between the two.

I made no reference in the piece to any plank in the Democrats' current platform. I'm sure I could go off on something or other, just as I'm positive I could do the same thing with the Republicans. But why bother? The platforms are pointless, written for interest groups and then ignored after the election.

Mike T.