TAMPA

Three nights of chiselling, buffing and polishing of Mitt Romney began as the sun set here Tuesday.

The party platform, usually the forgotten orphan of the U.S. presidential campaign, has grown up in 2012 and threatens to undermine whatever makeover the GOP had planned for its nominee.

In its draft form, the Republican platform had already been dubbed the most conservative in the country’s history.

With a surprisingly tepid, yet unanimous, affirmation from the convention floor, that draft became official.

The uber-conservative label it carries is no mere hyperbole from Romney’s Democratic opponents.

And, in bad news for the Republican ticket, a poll by the Pew Research Center released Monday showed 52 per cent of Americans are either very or somewhat interested in the Republican platform, compared with 44 per cent who say they’re interested in Romney’s acceptance speech.

That is a throwback to the days before primaries and image politics, but is very much the product of the unwanted attention Republicans have brought on themselves with what Democrats have called their “war on women.”

The platform adopted here would outlaw abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.

It backs a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and affirms the rights of states and the federal government to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.

Same-sex marriage, it says, is an “assault on the foundations of our society.”

The platform says the party would overturn any bid to limit the capacity of clips or magazines for weapons and oppose any move to restore the ban on assault weapons.

It would aggressively pursue anti-union right-to-work legislation at the state level.

It backs energy exploration and development of the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

It would overturn any immigration amnesty, and advocates making English the official national language.

It would reject the use of taxation to redistribute income or fund “unnecessary or ineffective” programs.

And a move to increased vigilance against pornography was hailed by Patrick Trueman of the faith-based Morality and Media, who told The Huffington Post young American males are spending 10 to 12 years masturbating to porn on the Internet, leading to a sexual dysfunction by the time they marry.

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In short, it is a platform that would have drawn blushes from the most ardent, early-day Reformers in Canada.

“We have outlined a conservative vision of governance, a document that is many things — an indictment, a blueprint and a declaration of values,” said Bob McDonnell, the Virginia governor who chaired the platform committee.

“This platform is an invitation. It invites every American to consider what kind of country we want to be.”

It’s not clear that is an invitation Romney would accept. He, for example, would allow abortion in the case of rape, incest or if the mother’s life was threatened, and he has desperately tried to distance himself from Missouri Republican Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments.

But it is an invitation that delegates would seem to be delighted to accept.

A study of delegates over four decades released Monday by the American Enterprise Institute revealed much about those who attend the conventions, showing that in the case of Republicans, their delegates are more conservative than party supporters generally.

In 2008, only 32 per cent of Republican delegates were women, and only 2 per cent were black.

The corresponding Democrat numbers were 49 and 23 per cent.

That same year, 72 per cent of Republicans at the Minnesota convention were self-described conservatives, while 43 per cent of Democrats described themselves as liberal.

The platform is the natural progression of a party pressured by its Tea Party faction and it is unlikely Romney can outrun the document.

The day before it was adopted, House Speaker John Boehner said his party’s 62-page platform should be condensed to a single page, so at least voters will read it.