Two dripping sailors stood on the committee boat platform, staring at their dinghy.
In fact, as this story reverberated through the public discourse, the Republican National Committee's platform committee passed what one committee member told the Washington Times "appears to be the most conservative platform in modern history".
Under an agreement the party reached with Sanders and opponent Hillary Clinton, Sanders can select five people to serve on the party's platform committee, a third of the committee's members.
After this year's abortion plank language was approved with little debate, the chairman of the platform committee, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, praised the committee for "affirming our respect for human life" and for doing so expeditiously.
The language was described by Rachel Hoff of Washington DC, the first openly gay delegate in the history of the platform committee, as "the least divisive thing that committee addressed over two days".
Virginia Foxx, a platform committee co-chair and congresswoman from North Carolina, told a group of committee members ahead of the floor vote that there had been too much focus on the negative.
Exactly what the platform committee meant by "phenomenon" and "political incentives" is not explained, and members of the committee's staff could not be reached for comment as ScienceInsider went to press.
The Republican platform committee has agreed to meet with us.
In two weeks, the entire platform committee will vote at a meeting scheduled in Detroit.
And they have a lot of party activists behind them - the state committee members, the platform committee members, the people who make the machinery work.
"Unfortunately," he said, "the very conservative platform committee" changed the language.
