Preamble

This year, the American people will choose between two diametrically opposed visions of what America should be.

The Republican Party looks at our people and sees a new dawn of the American spirit.

The Democratic Party looks at our nation and sees the twilight of the American soul.

Republicans affirm that now, as throughout history, the spiritual and intellectual genius of the American people will create a better nation and maintain a just peace. To Republicans, creativity and growth are imperatives for a new era of opportunity for all.

The Republican Party’s vision of America’s future, the heart of our 1984 Platform, begins with a basic premise:

From freedom comes opportunity; from opportunity comes growth; from growth comes progress.

This is not some abstract formula. It is the vibrant, beating heart of the American experience. No matter how complex our problems, no matter how difficult our tasks, it is freedom that inspires and guides the American Dream.

If everything depends on freedom—and it does—then securing freedom, at home and around the world, is one of the most important endeavors a free people can undertake.

Thus, the title of our Platform, "America’s Future: Free and Secure," is more than a summary of our Platform’s message. It is the essence.

The Democratic Party understands none of this. It thinks our country has passed its peak. It offers Americans redistribution instead of expansion, contraction instead of growth, and despair instead of hope. In foreign policy it asserts the rhetoric of freedom, but in practice it follows a policy of withdrawal and isolation.

The Democratic Party, in its 1984 Platform, has tried to expropriate the optimism and vision that marked the 1980 Republican Platform.

Rhetorical pilfering of Republican ideals cannot disguise one of history’s major ironies: the party whose 1932 standard-bearer told the [p.2] American people, as president, that all we have to fear is fear itself has itself become the party of fear.

Today we declare ourselves the Party of Hope—not for some but for all.

It has been said that mercy must have a human heart and pity a human face. We agree. Democrats measure social programs in terms of government activity alone. But the divine command to help our neighbor is directed to each individual and not to a bureaucratic machine. Not every problem cries out for a federal solution.

We must help the poor escape poverty by building an economy which creates more jobs, the greatest poverty fighter of them all. Not to help the poor is to abandon them and demean our society; but to help the poor without offering them a chance to escape poverty is ultimately to degrade us all.

The great tasks of compassion must be accomplished both by people who care and by policies which foster economic growth to enhance all human development.

In all these areas, at home and abroad, Ronald Reagan has demonstrated the boldness of vision, the optimism for our future, and the confidence in the American people that can transform human lives and the life of a nation. That is what we expect from a President who, wounded by an assassin, walked his way into a hospital and cheerfully assured the world that he and his country would not be deterred from their destiny.

His example has shaped the 1984 Republican Platform, given it meaning and inspired its vision. We stand with President Reagan and with Vice President Bush to make it a reality. [p.3]