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WASHINGTON (AP) — Four days before the Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago, the party's proposed platform names the wrong candidate for president.
The Democratic platform — essentially a document outlining goals and policy positions the party supports — has not been updated since a draft was released July 13, eight days before President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
The committee in charge of compiling the platform worked for more than a year to draft it, including leaving room for key voices to comment and make changes earlier this summer. But the language set to go to the floor of the convention to be approved by delegates hasn't been modified since before Biden left the race. And the rules body is not scheduled to meet to update the platform before the convention begins Monday.
Harris hasn't released a detailed list of her policy positions since taking over the top of the Democratic ticket, though her campaign aides have suggested she no longer adheres to some of the more liberal positions she took during her first run for president in 2020, including endorsing a ban on hydraulic fracturing. The policy platform, which normally spells out a party's positions with heavy input from the presidential nominee's allies, currently doesn't provide insight into her direct views on key issues, either.
The platform is nonbinding. However, some Democrats criticized Republicans for failing to be more transparent while approving their party’s 16-page platform during the GOP convention last month in Milwaukee — including modifying the document to more closely adhere to former President Donald Trump’s positions on abortion and other key issues.
“The Democratic Party Platform will embody the values of our party and build upon the historic accomplishments Democrats have made during the Biden-Harris administration," the Democratic National Committee said in a statement Thursday. "The Platform Committee worked diligently with stakeholders from all corners of our party to create a bold, progressive agenda for the next four years, and the platform that delegates will vote on at convention will be a reflection of that process.”
Still, the draft platform from July states in its preamble, “President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are running to finish the job" — which is of course no longer true given that Biden is out of the race.
The Democrats' proposed platform runs to 80 pages and concentrates on painstakingly laying out how the Biden-Harris ticket is different from Trump, language which can still apply even if the party's ticket is now different.
It derides the former president and current Republican presidential nominee as “focused not on opportunity and optimism, but on revenge and retribution; not on the American people, but on himself." It accuses Trump and his party of being intent on "ripping away our bedrock personal freedoms, dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love.”
Most of the platform's core conclusions support the work of the Biden administration. In the weeks since she launched her presidential campaign, Harris has talked generally about supporting the Biden administration's key goals.
That means the holdover draft platform aligns with many of her views — though the fact that the candidate names haven’t been changed suggests that the new ticket hasn't had as much input as is typical in crafting the list of what it is supposed to fight for if it wins the White House.
The draft Democratic platform calls for restoring abortion rights nationwide, continuing to advance green energy initiatives that can create jobs and help slow climate change, capping low-income families' child care costs and urging Congress to approve a pathway to U.S. citizenship for “long-term” people in the country illegally.
It also says Israel's right to defend itself is "ironclad" while endorsing the Biden administration's efforts to broker a lasting cease-fire deal that could suspend the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.