How many people support eliminating the department of agriculture, eliminating medicare and social security, and allowing guns in schools? Surprisingly, enough people to allow those planks to be included in the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2010 Platform.

The interesting part about the RPI platform, aside from these pretty extreme positions, is that it requires nominated candidates to agree with 80 percent of the planks before they will receive the RPI’s backing. It’s hard to avoid the questions surrounding this, especially when many of the planks directly contradict many high profile GOP candidates.

I’m almost certain Senator Grassley wouldn’t be in favor of eliminating farm subsidies, the program that has given him $263,635 and more than $600k to his son. And neither Grassley or Terry Branstad would likely support the plank limiting public officials to serving no more than 12 years in office.

If that’s what they would obviously be against, it brings up a discussion of what they would support to meet their 80 percent.

Some other planks of the 2010 platform they could potentially throw their support behind include:

• Eliminating all minimum wage laws
• Allowing anyone to carry a gun into a public school if they’re licensed to carry a concealed weapon, because not allowing guns “endangers our children”
• Eliminating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
• Prohibiting gay marriage, civil unions, and adoption by gay parents
• Eliminating state and federal departments of education
• Candidates must accept that health care “is a privilege and not a right”
• Eliminate Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare

The list could go on, but this overview leaves many questions to be answered by Iowa Republicans about which 80 percent they agree with. Does Terry Branstad believe guns should be allowed in the classroom? Is Chuck Grassley working on a bill to eliminate the Department of Education? It’s unfortunately worth asking.