Rallying Round a Comma Cause

In the end, the debate was about one jot of punctuation, a comma. But the issue was a big one, namely the Republican Party's platform on the sensitive subject of tax increases. Meeting in Dallas last week, the party's platform subcommittee on economic policy began its deliberations with a staff-written version blessed by the White House. The draft declared that Republicans "oppose any attempts to increase taxes which would harm the recovery and reverse the trend to restoring control of the economy to individual Americans."

As grammarians and those used to political ooze quickly realized, that language did not oppose all tax increases, just harmful ones. Indeed, presidential advisers hoped to leave the door ajar for tax increases "as a last resort," in the President's words. Arguing in support of the limited loophole was Drew Lewis, former Secretary of Transportation and Reagan's liaison to the platform group, who insisted, colorfully if somewhat disjointedly: "I don't care if they close the door completely, but I want to be able to get a screwdriver in if the need arises."

That horrified the party's conservative firebrands, led by Congressmen Jack Kemp of New York, Vin Weber of Minnesota and Newt Gingrich of Georgia. They proposed to lock the door tight by inserting a comma after the word taxes.

In the conservative version, the party would "oppose any attempts to increase taxes, which would harm the recovery and reverse the trend to restoring control of the economy to individual Americans." Punctuated that way, the plank would hold all tax hikes to be harmful. If necessary, proclaimed Weber, "we'll take that comma to the floor--and I'm only half joking."

The comma was approved by the subcommittee without dissent. Determined to avoid playing into Walter Mondale's hands by emphasizing the party's punctuation problems, Lewis tried to close ranks after the vote. Said he, through a brave smile: "I like commas."