AUGUSTA, Maine  Top party officials are promising unity at the    Maine Republican State Convention this Friday and Saturday in    Bangor. If the predictions are right, the event will be a much    smoother gathering than the two prior conventions, which saw    factionalism split the party along ideological lines.  
    The push for party cohesion is evident in the conventions    theme: United for freedom, united for jobs, united for Maine.    Its an attempt to bring all flavors of Republicans back under    one big tent after two consecutive conventions in which tea    party activists and supporters of libertarian icon Ron Paul    bucked party leaders and pushed through their own agenda.  
    The Republican Party is not the vehicle for one point of view    on a narrow set of issues, or one candidate or one cause, said    state party Chairman Rick Bennett on Wednesday. Its a big    tent and I believe that.  
    The theme is also clear in the proposed Maine Republican    platform.  
    Party platforms, in which partisans lay out their values and    goals, used to be relatively obscure documents in Maine. For    decades, platforms were the purview only of hard-core party    insiders.  
    Then, in 2010, a minor firestorm was created when tea party    activists muscled through their own platform, edging out a more    traditional offering by party officers. The     new document took the agenda firmly out of Maine, focusing    mostly on national policy issues. It called for the abolition    of the U.S. Department of Education, for example, and called on    the U.S. to withdraw from all treaties with the United Nations.  
    It also called for term limits, an elimination of political    correctness, and a provision urging the U.S. military to    fight to win the War on Terror. It declared health care a    right, not a service, and name-dropped Ron Paul, a Republican    congressman from Texas and the darling of the tea party.  
    Some critics within the party faulted the platform for catering    to only one faction within Maines Republican community.  
    The platform was     adopted again in 2012, when Paul supporters  backing his    presidential bid      hijacked the convention from party officers and again    rejected a more broad, inclusive proposal by party leaders.    Democrats used the document to their campaign advantage,    telling their supporters that the GOP had been taken over by    extremists.  
    This year, the party is proposing a platform meant to focus on areas where    all Republicans agree. Gone are references to Austrian    economics and in their place are broad references to    constitutional fidelity, limited government and other GOP    hallmarks that appeal to all members of the party.  
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After tea party uprisings in 2010 and 2012, Maine Republicans expect unity at Bangor convention