Actually, it's “smaller” than that. First, as I wrote earlier, they're choosing to fixate on a number of essentially immediate issues — “issue of the month”-oriented shallowness. Second, they're stating largely that they're going to do X by opposing Y that Obama's trying to do. While some will be light thinkers and simply consider this as obstructionism or being “the party of No,” that's not all there is to it, and in fact these people are missing the real point. At its essence, these points are almost fully devoid of initiative or originality or true substance; the key here is that the party is effectively defining itself primarily and in effect, essentially, in terms of what the other major party is doing, i.e., waiting for whatever positions (of the month, or currently) Obama (leader at the present) and the Democrats take or will take, and largely (and define itself, the GOP, in terms of) opposing whatever the Democrats do.

Note that some of them are based on the most current events (this and next year), and so are fleeting (and fluffy).

1. We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes

by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

2. We support market-based health care reform

and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

3. We support market-based energy reforms

by opposing cap and trade legislation;

4. We support workers’ right to secret ballot

by opposing card check;

5. We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society

by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

6. We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan
by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

7. We support containment of Iran and North Korea,
particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

8. We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

9. We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons

by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

and

10. We support the right to keep and bear arms

by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

… a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee …

Let me give an example.

The Libertarian Party is a party that used to stand for something: individual freedom, free trade, and limited government. Unfortunately, in its desire to attract more people to the party, it has allowed people to join the party who have positions that are one hundred eighty degrees opposed to what libertarians believe in.

People who who don't know very much about the Libertarian Party will often say “Oh, I didn't know Bob Barr was a Libertarian” or “I didn't know that Mike Gravel was a Libertarian”, and will then come to the conclusion that Libertarians support some of the very unlibertarian positions that Bob Barr and Mike Gravel hold.

Part of the reason that I voted Libertarian in 2004 was because I opposed the War on Drugs and the Iraq War. For the Libertarian Party to nominate a presidential candidate who was once an ardent supporter of the War on Drugs (Bob Barr) and a vice presidential candidate who was once an ardent supporter of the Iraq War (Wayne Allyn Root) was kind of a slap in the face.

It's probably not a good idea to insist that everyone who joins a particular party agree with a particular platform. But if you're going to actually run for public office, you ought to actually agree with the party on the fundamental issues.

The problem with the Republican Party, however, is more than whether a politician agrees with the party platform. It's about the inherent incoherence of a party platform itself. The majority of the ten-point plaftorm focuses of opposing the growth of the federal government. Two of the planks, however–those dealing with foreign policy–do completely the opposite; that is, they insist upon maintaining an expensive, interventionist foreign policy.

I'm not sure even Robert Taft, the former Republican Senate Majority leader and “Mr. Republican” himself would have agreed with 80% of the positions in this platform.

In short, I don't believe that political parties should be imposing “litmus tests” on people who join then. However, I do believe that both the Republican and Democratic parties should be fielding candidates that actually stand for a coherent set of ideas–something that is entirely to rare nowadays.

If the Republican Party wants to be seen as fiscally responsible, then it can't allow polticians who vote for pork barrel spending and skyrocketing deficits to continue winning their congressional seats year after year. And if the Democratic Party wants to be seen as socially tolerant, then it can't allow politicians who support draconian drugs laws and refuse to defend civil liberties to continue winning their congressional seats year after year.

This is completely delusional of course.