Impeachment plank stirs debate

Kirsten Searer

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

Nevada's new Democratic Party platform that calls for the impeachment of President Bush drew some national attention on Monday when conservative commentator Tucker Carlson called the platform plank "completely insane" on the CNN show "Crossfire."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who represented the Democratic side of issues on the show, told Carlson he wouldn't support impeaching the president.

"He has done nothing that I know of which would deserve impeachment," Goodman said. "You vote against him if you don't like what he did. That's the way the process should work."

Democrats passed the resolution to impeach Bush as one plank of their party platform this weekend at their state convention, and that plank has been the item of discussion in some political circles.

The plank, which calls for the impeachment of President Bush "for lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq," was proposed Friday by Sen. Bob Coffin at a platform committee meeting.

Coffin said he decided while he was driving to the committee meeting on Friday that he would lobby for something strong to go into the platform to condemn Bush for what he calls a "pattern of deception."

"I've been tussling with my own personal feelings on this for weeks and weeks," Coffin said. "I took a look at it and decided that the party was not calling into account the one person who is really responsible for the situation we face."

Some members of the committee, which is mostly made up of longtime political activists, cheered when Coffin announced his idea. Coffin said that when he left the room, "seven or eight people came to me and said, 'Thank you very much for saying what we all wanted to say.' "

The plank went into the platform and was never debated before the full Democratic convention -- much of the platform was passed without debate on Sunday as the convention ran out of time.

Democratic Party chairwoman Adriana Martinez said there are people in the party angry with the president. Record numbers of people have come out to party caucuses and meetings.

In some ways, the idea came about because "those who yell the loudest" pushed it, she said.

"These folks are really upset," she said, adding that many Democrats also think Bush lied when he told Nevadans that he would wait on scientific testing before proceeding with the Yucca Mountain project.

"Basically, you kept hearing the resounding message of, 'He lied about Yucca Mountain, he lied about Iraq, this is nobody we can trust,' " Martinez said. " 'How much more trouble can our country get in?' "

Martinez said she hasn't spoken to other party leaders about the platform. If Republicans are joking about the platform, they shouldn't, she said.

"We're serious," she said. "We had a convention that's quite serious."

Some state Democratic leaders edged away from the idea. On Saturday, Sen. Harry Reid said he'd rather vote Bush out of office on Election Day.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said he thought the impeachment idea was pushed by "a group of very motivated people who are in disagreement with the President."

But Coffin said that the 920 Democrats who attended the convention at the Riviera hotel-casino had plenty of time to object to the call for impeachment, but he heard little complaint.

"People liked the idea of leaving it in, and they have deniability," he said. "Their hands are not on the document."

Not surprisingly, other Republicans beyond Carlson criticized the platform's impeachment plank, with executive director Chris Carr saying the Democratic platform is "out of step with mainstream Nevada and mainstream America."

Some wondered if the platform would do the Democrats more harm than good.

Political strategist Mike Sullivan said that candidates are usually judged by their own personal beliefs and that party platforms are "usually what the hard-core party regulars believe."

"If you looked at the past years of Republican platforms, I think you could make (Republican Gov.) Kenny Guinn blush," he said.

Party platforms typically go overlooked in campaign cycles unless they contain something "absurd or silly," said Republican campaign consultant Mike Slanker. But, he said, this platform could get people riled up.

"My guess is it will probably be forgotten, but it was certainly not a shrewd move," Slanker said, laughing. "I'm sure there's a handful of Democratic campaign managers who hope to hell it will be forgotten."