Building a platform proves a delicate operation for GOP

It's very clearly John McCain's party platform, but it's not a perfect fit.

Members of the Republican National Committee are meeting in Minneapolis this week to put finishing touches on the platform that will be adopted at the party's national convention in St. Paul next week.

During initial sessions Tuesday, some committee members had to tiptoe carefully as they reviewed the sections of the 48-page document on abortion and immigration -- two hot-button issues where McCain has at times been at odds with the GOP's base.

It's not as if McCain will have to abide by every position, or plank, in the platform, a largely symbolic document that presidential candidates rarely even mention.

In the bulk of the document, there's no apparent daylight between the platform's positions and the candidate's. On the war in Iraq, foreign policy in general, energy policy, taxes, they're in perfect sync.

In one significant area -- global warming -- the party's longstanding skepticism has been softened somewhat to align with McCain's position.

The platform states: "By increasing our American energy supply and decreasing the long-term demand for oil, we will be well positioned to address the challenge of global warming ..."

The document also endorsed "building on the bipartisan expansion of the GI Bill" -- a measure McCain opposed last spring as a budget buster.

On Tuesday morning, members of the party's subcommittee reviewing the platform's draft language on immigration picked gingerly through the words and phrases, trying to find an approach that squares the positions of McCain with those of party activists.

Since the collapse of his immigration reform bill last year, McCain has often acknowledged he was out of step with many Republicans in supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He now says securing the nation's borders has to be the first priority.

"We need to have a tough statement on border security while we try to achieve a balance," said committee member Robert (Bud) McFarlane, who was national security adviser in the Reagan administration. "We are not a xenophobic party, we are not an intolerant party, but we insist on the rule of law."

When a Colorado committee representative tried to amend the platform's flat statement that "we oppose amnesty" by adding "or any kind comprehensive immigration reform," it set off a brief row. The amendment failed.

Although McCain has been staunchly against abortion during his current presidential run, when he first ran in 1999, he said he "would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade," the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Elsewhere in the platform's values section, one committee member suggested adding phrasing about the desirability of reducing the frequency of divorce. After another committee member noted that McCain is divorced, the language was dropped.