PRESS RELEASE
August 8, 1995

STATEMENT BY ANN LEWIS
DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER

After promising that his platform would reach out to mainstream Republicans by including "tolerance" language in the GOP’s abortion plank, Bob Dole agreed yesterday to push "tolerance" out of the GOP platform altogether.

Tolerance is not in the abortion plank -- as Bob Dole promised it would be. There is no "tolerance plank" in the GOP platform -- as Bob Dole promised there would be. In fact, yesterday’s deal established in writing that tolerance is a second class issue in Bob Dole’s Republican Party.

Mainstream Republicans’ attempts to include tolerance in the platform will now be listed in an "appendix" -- along with other amendments that were rejected by Bob Dole’s delegates.

As Pat Buchanan’s sister Bay said: "... (W)e will, obviously, in an appendix (list) those amendments that they proposed. They did happen, they were proposed, they were defeated, and that's all this says" (CNN Inside Politics Extra, 8/7/96)

A Wall Street Journal poll out today shows that "some 52% of Republican voters surveyed said the party should either drop from its platform support for an anti-abortion constitution amendment or eliminate reference to abortion altogether."

Bob Dole’s convention platform defeated this majority of mainstream Republicans -- and sided with the right-wing, extreme fringe of the party. Or as Bay Buchanan put it: "This is very Buchanan ... We could not be more pleased. This is much more of a ... Buchananesque platform than we ever dreamed, to be honest."
(Washington Post, 8/8/96)

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