I want to add two other things here.
1) Party platforms HAVE to have some elasticity to function in the real world.
A nominee may well have every intention of cutting the defense budget but something like 9/11 can change that immediately - just to use one example.
2) Presidents by definition respond to events as they occur in the future unbound by the promises they made in the past.
One of the big things for Bill Clinton (and it's been pretty much forgotten) was attacking Pres Bush for not insisting on more human rights in China as they were under most favored nation status (MFN), this after the Tiannemen Square Massacre in 1989. He bashed him the whole race on that and sounded REAL good. He bashed Bush from one end of America to the other, snorting the whole time about how we ought to shut down the US market there until they had human rights.
Then he got to be President and.....oh, how things changed. First, his advisers persuaded him that keeping that status actually made it more likely they might listen to him on human rights (mimicking Reagan in his efforts with Gorbachev). Secondly, they realized that this would raise the tariffs on Chinese imports to the US from 8 to 40 percent. And both business groups and farm groups pointed out China had one of the world's most growing economies and they could make money there (which amazingly changes everything).
In 1994, Clinton opted to keep MFN with China. Michael Kinsley, the liberal from "Crossfire" who had endorsed Clinton, came down in favor of keeping it with this observation: "the only thing worse than a bad campaign promise is keeping one."
Could anyone in 1964 have predicted how we handled Vietnam?
Did anyone in 1968 imagine our changed policy with China?
And who, in 1980, would have ever thought that by the end of his tenure, Ronald Reagan would go to Moscow and modify his earlier assessment of the Soviet Union as "the evil empire"?
Did anyone in 1992 forsee the rise of domestic AND global terrorism? (Waco, OKC, Bin Laden)
Did anyone in 2000 realize how close to something like 9/11 we were or that Bush had the proverbial aroused part for Iraq?
I guess I've said enough. They're generic, a sop to special interests, and virtually useless as a guide for what the parties will actually do.
1) Party platforms HAVE to have some elasticity to function in the real world.
A nominee may well have every intention of cutting the defense budget but something like 9/11 can change that immediately - just to use one example.
2) Presidents by definition respond to events as they occur in the future unbound by the promises they made in the past.
One of the big things for Bill Clinton (and it's been pretty much forgotten) was attacking Pres Bush for not insisting on more human rights in China as they were under most favored nation status (MFN), this after the Tiannemen Square Massacre in 1989. He bashed him the whole race on that and sounded REAL good. He bashed Bush from one end of America to the other, snorting the whole time about how we ought to shut down the US market there until they had human rights.
Then he got to be President and.....oh, how things changed. First, his advisers persuaded him that keeping that status actually made it more likely they might listen to him on human rights (mimicking Reagan in his efforts with Gorbachev). Secondly, they realized that this would raise the tariffs on Chinese imports to the US from 8 to 40 percent. And both business groups and farm groups pointed out China had one of the world's most growing economies and they could make money there (which amazingly changes everything).
In 1994, Clinton opted to keep MFN with China. Michael Kinsley, the liberal from "Crossfire" who had endorsed Clinton, came down in favor of keeping it with this observation: "the only thing worse than a bad campaign promise is keeping one."
Could anyone in 1964 have predicted how we handled Vietnam?
Did anyone in 1968 imagine our changed policy with China?
And who, in 1980, would have ever thought that by the end of his tenure, Ronald Reagan would go to Moscow and modify his earlier assessment of the Soviet Union as "the evil empire"?
Did anyone in 1992 forsee the rise of domestic AND global terrorism? (Waco, OKC, Bin Laden)
Did anyone in 2000 realize how close to something like 9/11 we were or that Bush had the proverbial aroused part for Iraq?
I guess I've said enough. They're generic, a sop to special interests, and virtually useless as a guide for what the parties will actually do.