WASHINGTON — A parade of Democratic interest groups are lining up to try to jam their pet issues into President Obama’s party platform, forcing stalwarts to hold the line to keep Obama out of trouble.
Top Democrats — who meet today in Minneapolis to start drafting the platform — are getting pleas to add party planks on issues ranging from sports medicine to salad-bar and pickle sanitation, confirming the old joke that Democrats don’t belong to an organized political party.
“Some guy said the party ought to take an aggressive position on making sure salad bars and pickle jars were sanitary,” former Rep. Robert Wexler of New Jersey told The Post. “I think it’s a good idea. I don’t know if a party platform is the place for it, but it sounds like a good idea,” he said with a chuckle.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who like Wexler sits on the platform committee, said his idea is “stay short and thematic” and keep extraneous issues out.
This philosophy applies to gay marriage, even though Frank, who is openly gay, just married his longtime partner. “There may be a decision not to get into it a whole lot. This is a strategic judgment,” he said.