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AUGUSTA — The Maine Republican Party’s effort to avoid a state convention platform debate over abortion is expected to come under challenge, state GOP Chairman Edward S. O’Meara Jr. says.
The proposed declaration of party principles makes no mention of abortion, reflecting not only divisions within the state party’s rank-and-file but also between the “pro-choice” stance of Maine’s leading elected Republicans and the “pro-life” position of President Bush.
“If I had my druthers, I’d keep it right the way it is,” says O’Meara, describing the matter as among “issues that we could never agree on.”
Nonetheless, O’Meara added, “it would surprise me if someone doesn’t make a run at it.”
Hundreds of delegates, alternates and other Republican activists are expected to gather Friday at the Augusta Civic Center on the opening of the party’s biennial two-day convention.
Bush Chief of Staff Samuel Skinner is to be the keynote speaker Friday night.
The platform debate is scheduled for Saturday morning, prior to the election of the final members of the Maine delegation to the Republican National Convention in Houston.
Sixteen delegates and as many alternates to the national convention are to be elected at large. In addition, three delegates and three alternates will be elected by both the 1st and 2nd Congressional District caucuses.
“I think it’s going to be a very open process,” O’Meara said.
The chairman said he was uncertain about the extent to which the party establishment would seek to obtain approval for a predetermined slate of candidates for delegates.
“The primary call on that may be made by the Bush-Quayle people,” he said.
But given the lack of serious opposition to Bush’s re-election drive within the party, O’Meara said he did not believe delegate elections would spark factional conflict.
“I think in this case, where we’ve got an incumbent, … then a slate becomes less relevant,” he said.
The proposed party platform lauds Bush and President Reagan for presiding over “11 years of national and international Republican leadership.”
“Our challenges now,” the statement asserts, “are the challenges of peace, to build a country as prosperous economically as it is strong militarily, as free from the threats of crime and drugs as it is from the threat of war, and as committed to the happiness of every citizen as it is to the liberty of every nation.”
Similarly, the proposed platform credits Gov. John R. McKernan and Republican lawmakers “for their vision and continuing efforts to make Maine a better place to live, work and raise our families.”
Expressing pride in “America’s diversity,” the statement pledges the party to welcome “new ideas and varying points of view.”
“We seek, not a wooden conformity nor a patchwork of competing special interests, but a healthy, growing consensus that results from open, informed discussion and reasonable agreement.
“Where such consensus proves impossible,” the proposed platform preamble says, “we allow each individual to follow the dictates of his or her own conscience.”
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