The platform never before included a specific budgetary priorities plank because defense spending was never questioned as much as it is today. Allison explained. She said that cuts in military expenditures had generated the new issue of priorities in spending.
"It's hard to get a feel for the candidates' real positions--hard to pin them down on how much they want to cut," Allison said.
"And people don't like to be terribly specific on where to send the money," she added. "They may have to choose national health insurance over day care--and nobody wants to be against day care."
Liebman predicted that the question of integrating the suburbs would stir the most controversy in his plank on "Cities, Towns and Suburbs," although he said there is general agreement that the Nixon Administration has shortchanged the cities.
"It's not clear how specific a device the platform is; in the past the Party has united behind a series of rousing cliches," said Liebman, who until two years ago served as a trouble-shooter for New York Mayor John Lindsay.
Allison also found past platforms undistinguished. "Every so often as I'm frantically calling someone for this job. I realize that I can't recall a single portion of the 1968 platform except for the Vietnam plank," she remarked.
The O'Hara Commission, formed after the 1968 Democratic Convention, mandated the hearings and new procedures of Platform Committee selection. The McGovern Commission introduced reforms in the delegate selection process.
"We've been caught between two reforms." Neustadt said. "The O'Hara Commission assumed delegates would be selected early while the McGovern Commission provided that they were chosen late."
As a result, the hearings had to begin before all the Convention delegates were chosen in order to finish by June 23, the first full meeting of the Platform Committee.
Each of the research associates will attend several of the Platform Committee's 15 hearings, including the one that deals with his area of interest. At the hearings, to be held during the next month in various cities across the country, local members of the 150-man Platform Committee will listen to testimony from experts in different fields.
Each hearing consists of a morning session that considers a specific national issue like "Education" or "Taxes" and an afternoon session devoted to regional problems.
The New England regional hearing began yesterday at Faneuil Hall in Boston and dealt with "Rights. Opportunities and Political Power." The final session in Boston is scheduled for this morning on "Education."
The research associates will also consult experts in the field, Congressional personnel, interest groups, and past party platforms in defining the issues in their areas. After a series of rough drafts, each researcher will submit proposed platform language to the drafting subcommittee for alternative positions on his topic.
"We're supposed to point out the general directions that the party can choose from or fudge over," said Liebman.
Neustadt has instructed the researchers to take into account the positions of the primary contenders when drawing up their alternative proposals. "We may be drafting language for the Wallace people to get their positions into good form for a floor fight." Liebman said. "It'll be interesting--and maybe immoral."
Since there are 18 research associates, each contribution to the drafting subcommittee will be highly restricted in length. "My most optimistic assumption is that we'll have between 500 and 1500 words per subject. You can't really make out a policy or spell out an argument," Roberts said.
During the last week of June, a drafting subcommittee will consider the work of the research associates and the final document will be mailed out to the delegates by June 30