Obama’s Listening to America Program

by Pat Canady

As part of their Listening to America Program, the Obama campaign named Governor Janet Napolitano to head the campaign’s Platform Drafting Committee. The Governor will plan more than 1,000 community meetings across the nation. These Platform Committee house parties are part of the process in crafting a platform for Barack Obama. The Governor said her assignment doesn’t mean she will be putting anything into the document the presumptive Democratic nominee for president would not like.

She said her committee is different from the party’s standing Platform Committee with its three co-chairs, whose job it is to set ultimate party policy. Her position is created solely by the presidential nominee "to assemble, in one document, the proposed platform for the presidential race itself."

Napolitano said the idea for the community meetings stems from Obama’s belief in "a public process and lots of input" in crafting policy.

Nearly two dozen platform meetings already have been scheduled around Arizona. As a Delegate, I am hosting a Platform Hourse Party in Tucson. Twenty people have signed up to attend. Platform Mtg. guidelines were sent to me to assure we understand the concept. The attendees will exercise civility and debate. We must form a consensus around the issues that are most important to the group as a whole. I have pages of suggested issues for the group to read and then vote for their top two preferences.
Breaking into smaller work groups, the attendees will develop a specific position, recommendation, or policy that we believe should be addressed. The language will be straightforward and easy to understand. Platforms are expressions of general policy and general direction, not specific legislative vehicles. Our ideas can be broad and visionary…limited to a few sentences.

I will, as the host, submit our positions on the Obama website and those will go to the Governor’s committee.

The Obama campaign says a national hearing has been set for Aug. 1, where presentations will be made to the panel Napolitano is chairing. The committee then is scheduled to have two days of public hearings to draft the platform.