Tim Ryan won election to Ohio’s 17th District congressional seat by a whopping 56 point margin in 2008. Such an overwhelming election result signifies that Ryan has quite a bit of wiggle room when it comes to policy. A landslide winner like Ryan could follow his policy dictates with a fair amount of free will, unconcerned about losing his re-election bid the next time out.

From the point of view of the Democratic Party, the 2008 election result for Tim Ryan is a signal of a strong Democratic Party presence in Ohio’s 17th District. Looking at the 2008 election results, Democratic Party officials might reasonably conclude that a candidate more liberal than Tim Ryan would stand a good chance of election in the district. Challengers for Tim Ryan’s seat might reasonably conclude that they could run for office to the left of Ryan and, with some skillful campaigning, pick up a number of Ohio’s 17th District voters.

If Tim Ryan is interested in serving in Congress to enact the Democratic Party platform, then it would make sense for him to take a look at the 2008 election results and consider the ways in which he might vote more in line with that platform. If the Democratic Party is interested in advancing its platform through the Congress as part its active legislative agenda, then it would make sense for the Party to pressure Ryan to support the platform in his work as a member of Congress. If Tim Ryan refuses to do so, it would make sense for the a platform-centered Democratic Party to look for other candidates to run for Ryan’s seat, and it would make sense for challengers for Tim Ryan’s seat to organize a Democratic Party campaign.

The Democratic Party platform very clearly stands in opposition to discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans when it comes to marriage:

Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disability in every corner of our country, because that’s the America we believe in. We all have to do our part to lift up this country, and that means changing hearts and changing minds, and making sure that every American is treated equally under the law…. We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.

Tim Ryan has failed to support repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Democratic Party platform very clearly stands for ensuring women access to abortion services regardless of their ability to pay:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

Tim Ryan has voted for the Stupak Amendment, a bill that weakens and undermines a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion by prohibiting private health insurance from offering coverage for abortions. The prohibition applies to everybody under the plan, even if just one woman covered under the plan receives a subsidy to help her pay a premium. Even women who pay all their health insurance expenses out of their own pocket would be forbidden from getting abortion coverage, restricting access to abortion to women of means.

These two policies — repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, defense of a woman’s right to choose — are so central to the Democratic Party that they merit particular mention as planks in the party platform, so central that Democratic President Barack Obama has dedicated entire presidential speeches to the subjects. Tim Ryan stands against his party platform on these issues.

Does the Democratic Party put a priority on the passage of its own policy agenda? If so, we’d see the Democratic Party recruiting candidates to put Tim Ryan up for primary challenge. But as campaign finance records for Ohio’s 17th District show, the only person running an organized campaign for election in the 17th District is Tim Ryan, and the only Democratic Party politician discussing a run against Ryan in the primaries is ex-Representative Jim Traficant, who held Ohio’s 17th District seat before he was hauled off to 7 years’ jail time for corruption-related felonies.

The lack of a challenger against someone who won re-election so handily, and yet who has stepped away from the Democratic Party’s stated priorities, says something about the level of commitment by the Democratic Party to the implementation of its own platform.