A platform ought to fit on the back of a business card.  Not even full sentences, just keywords that harken to principles.

• Transparency
• Minimal intrusion
• Minimal expansion
• Minimal expense
• Liberty
• Strong laws

If your platform calls for things that don’t boil back down to those basics, you’re probably doing it for the wrong reason (or the wrong people.)

Let’s look at a few corresponding examples:

• If the freezer you use to stash away your bribe money has no glass window, you’re not being transparent.
• If the law you just passed gives blanket authority to individuals, you’re enabling the trampling of a human being’s rights.
• If a proposed agency has no provision for sunset, then you have planned for it to fail in its core mission.
• If you start your business budget process assuming you will need to spend more than last year, you’ll probably be out of business soon.  (Unless your business has an endless supply of taxpayers to shake down.)
• If a law places a greater priority on security instead of liberty, the threat  had better be clearly enunciated and have a sunset provision.
• Laws that hold us to our freely-negotiated contracts should be enforced for the good of us all, lest courts become a pay-for-play arena where the special interests win.