CLEVELAND —

The Democratic Party’s drafting committee began composing their platform this afternoon. Foreign and domestic policies were covered today incorporating ideas from both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The drafters also took into account the stories of struggling Americans that spoke this morning, concerns brought up in over 1,300 meetings with Americans around the country, and various groups that urged the committee yesterday to include their issues in the platform.

Committee Chairperson and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano described the platform draft the committee is working from, “It really sets forth with clarity various foreign policy ideals that we have as Democrats. It incorporates new ideas on education both K through 12 and higher education. The platform on energy is very strong and the connection between a new energy future and a new economic future for the country.”

Clinton backer and former top health care policy advisor to President Clinton said it was “heartening” to see so many of her policies in the draft especially with regards to health care, “It’s important that her voice and her overall policies are included and I’ve seen that over the last few days and it’s been important to her and her followers that you are seeing in this first draft of the platform very specific references to issues she has cared about and how she talked about it,” Chris Jennings told Fox News, “When she’s talked about people who are invisible. When she talks about the sandwich generation. When she talks about middle class working people and empowering them to work.”

The draft does mention the “sandwich generation” which is the growing number of Americans caring for both children and parents – a group Clinton often said during her campaign needs to be helped. The draft acknowledges that, “It’s time we stop just talking about family values, and start pursuing policies that truly value families. Families are increasingly responsible for caring for children and aging relatives and its (sic) time for the government to meet them halfway.”

Jennings acknowledged that there will always be some Clinton supporters that have “hurt feelings” over the bruising primary, but that Democrats are unified now to beat John McCain. He pressed that Obama still needs to reach out to both Clinton and her supporters, “She has been saying nothing but very good things about Senator Obama and you know I think it is important that he reaches out to her frankly and to her supporters because she won almost 49 percent of the vote and I think she is and 18 million people are important,” Jennings continued, “It’s a part of conciliation. It’s part of reconciliation, but I totally see it particularly ironically amongst the candidates. She long ago said let’s look forward not backwards and…it is helpful to her to be able to point to specific things. For example, in this platform there are signals of reaching out.”

Napolitano said the party is unified on the platform and the direction they want to take the country, but there is room for disagreement, “Talk nuance, word choice, all the rest but the goals of a revitalized economy, a strong military, an emphasis on education and education for the 21st century leading into the new types of jobs that we need to have,” Napolitano told reporters, “These are shared values in the party and that is what is coming on to the platform.”

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Missing from the working draft is whether to protect the first in the nation caucuses and primary held in Iowa and New Hampshire. This was a huge issue during the Democratic primaries when Michigan and Florida moved their primaries earlier only to be stripped of their delegates by the party essentially making their primaries not count. Many Clinton backers believe this may have cost her the nomination. Napolitano said although it is not mentioned in the working platform draft it may be considered later, but said that the issue is more for Congress to work on, “I think fairness in the selection of the nominee is always an issue to the Democratic Party, but the process itself is Congressional in nature and not part of this platform right now.”

The discussions over the draft were respectful, complimentary, and unified. A far cry from the division seen in the party during the primary battle, especially during the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting in May that at times pit Clinton supporters against Obama backers. Most comments today involved members praising the main authors of the draft: Karen Kornbluh, who has worked on Obama’s Senatorial staff and Dr. Susan Rice, Obama’s top foreign policy advisor. Some members asked for language to be tweaked or strengthened, but even on sometimes-controversial issues like keeping Jerusalem the undivided capitol of Israel or preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons all members were in agreement.

There was a brief interruption when five protesters stood up and chanted, “U.S. leadership represents imperialism. Don’t attack Iran,” urging committee members not to use military action to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. The protesters quickly left.

The meetings continue tomorrow where they will finish drafting the platform before it is presented in front of the entire committee next weekend.