House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that this year’s convention, shortened a day by Hurricane Isaac, proves that political conventions can be short and sweet in the future.
“Under the law, you have to have a nomination process to choose a candidate. And the current law requires us to have some type of a convention. But it doesn’t require us to have a four-day convention and the massive amounts of money that get spent putting these on,” Boehner told PBS. “Today, with all the technology that’s available, I do think there’s a way to shorten this process and still accomplish the goals.”
The speaker reiterated his long-held belief that the Republican platform can be super-short and sweet, too.
“Back in the mid-’90s, I was on a crusade to try to get the platform on one sheet of paper. You put it on one sheet of paper, it requires you to make decisions, make it clear, you know, what the party stands for rather than these long documents that nobody reads,” Boehner said. “I’ve never read one. I’ll guarantee I’m not sure if anybody’s ever read one, other than maybe the chairman of the platform committee.”
He suggested that GOP nominee Mitt Romney give a focused speech Thursday on “five things that we have to do to allow Americans to get back to work again and to save the future for our kids and our grandkids.”
The speaker also brushed off assertions that the party was leaning to the extreme right.
“I don’t know what these extreme positions might be that the party takes, because I frankly don’t think we take extreme positions,” Boehner said. “You know, I’ve been a Republican now for, oh, about 30 years. I grew up in a household full of Democrats. And I don’t see extreme views. Now do we have some members who are a little bit further right than others? Yes. But as a party as a whole, I don’t think that’s — I don’t think that’s an issue there.”
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