Two Very Different Conservative Women

With very different agendas: Margaret Hoover, a leading GOP strategist, fights for gay equality. Michele Bachmann is a vehement phobe (although she’s currently soft-peddling her bigotry).

19 Comments for “Two Very Different Conservative Women”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    I don’t have any doubt she walks in conservative circles (mainly because of GOProud), but Hoover does not strike me as a conservative herself. Maybe it’s just a generational thing with her, though. I mean especially on gay issues, she comes across as someone who accepts the liberal social view of the way the world is, just not liberal means. Bush was like that to some extent on race and yes homosexuality, too. I mean, okay, her thought pattern on other issues tends to favor traditional values, that’s true of most people anyway. Values and ideology are two different things.

    I’ll be more convinced if someone can point out the rest of her thought pattern being conservative.

    No argument on Bachman. As it stands I’m still voting for her if she’s the nominee, though, and I don’t want any lip about it, either. She’s at least being polite about it right now, which is a requirement. Let’s see how she responds when she gets cornered.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I mean for goodness sakes, people, she’s the liberal voice on Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Warriors segment.

      • posted by Doug on

        Just keep in mind that she thinks you are beast that needs to be disciplined out of being gay and that her husband believes in reparative therapy.

        • posted by Jorge on

          I would *not* mind Michelle Bachman thinking I was a beast that needs disciplining.

          If I were straight. Anyway yeah I get that but she is only one person before the judgment of the rest of America. If she is willing to acquiesce to the judgment of the American people, agree or disagree, that will be enough for me. We shall see.

          • posted by Jimmy on

            “If she is willing to acquiesce to the judgment of the American people, agree or disagree, that will be enough for me. We shall see.”

            Indeed. The same should be said of President Obama. Regardless of where he stands personally on the equality issue, it comes down to whether or not he signs the legislation should it ever reach his desk. I believe he would. That certainly is enough for me.

    • posted by JohnAGJ on

      There isn’t a chance in hell I’ll vote for Bachmann. She is one of the few GOP candidates that would actually make me consider voting for Obama. I don’t expect to have an HRC-approved darling from the GOP but I sure as hell don’t want someone who gets thumbs up from Exodus International and NARTH setting national policy.

  2. posted by Jimmy on

    “GOProud has put the heat on conservative leaders who are uncomfortable with gays being part of the conservative movement — a service I view as invaluable.”

    Sure had ’em sweating at CPAC.

  3. posted by BobN on

    Oh, great, another pretty but powerless GOP female marketing the GOP to gay people and not doing a damned thing to move the GOP.

    It’s called window dressing.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Powerless? You call a weekly appearance on the O’Reilly Factor powerless window dressing that’s not doing a thing to move the GOP? Well I’ll tell you this much, I don’t think Margaret Hoover appears to be an agent of change so much as a symptom.

      Appearances are deceiving. What you cannot see is what she does behind the scenes, what her pull is. She is said to be a “political strategiest.” You don’t see the moves political strategiests make unless they’re working for the president. She is (or was) an advisory committee member of GOProud. What the heck is that? Obviously that means she says things off the record and someone’s listening to her, but what is she saying? To whom? How convincing is she? These are the things you don’t see.

      So whereas most young liberal-leaning Republicans are just products of the times, there’s a small group of them that are politically active, that become producers of political effects.

      • posted by Brian Miller on

        You call a weekly appearance on the O’Reilly Factor powerless window dressing that’s not doing a thing to move the GOP?

        FOX News is mental masturbation.

        Get her into a policy position — like a superdelegate to the Republican Party convention with a role writing the party platform — and I’ll be impressed.

        Until then, it’s just window dressing.

        • posted by Jorge on

          Get her into a policy position — like a superdelegate to the Republican Party convention with a role writing the party platform — and I’ll be impressed.

          A voice with the power to persuade millions of viewers who might influence the party platform vs. a token in a back room? Now that’s what I call window dressing.

          Next!

          • posted by Jimmy on

            So, of these two women, which has the more power to persuade party leaders, such as they are, or to impact the party platform, such as it is?

            Looking at GOP primary voters, who will determine your nominee, it is hard to see where Hoover has any impact that isn’t undermined.

          • posted by Jorge on

            Impact the party platform? Bachman. Persuade party leaders? Hoover.

            Of course it’s being undermined. Hoover’s is a minority view on gay issues within the party. But so is Bachman’s. Don’t Republicans actually support civil unions now? That’s what happens in a democracy, people compete with each other. Usually the difference is split in some way. I believe what each does has an effect that makes a difference.

            Miller and others on this site have been saying for years that there are redeeming features of the Republican party and its leaders. I’ve noticed they keep finding new things that are redeeming, things that have happened very recently. So whatever it is they used to think was happening continued to be in motion. Competition remains, as they also keep warning about new dire anti-gay trends and events. What’s the result? Now we’re at the point where Rockefeller Republicans are coming back from the dead to support pro-gay marriage Republican legislators, and a Bush Republican is championing liberal/libertarian views of gay rights in cable news’s most popular show.

            We all know the gay rights movement is still rightfully led by the progressives. Your point on Obama is well-taken and I think understated given that he signed the DADT “repeal” and that the Justice Department stopped defending DOMA.

          • posted by Tom on

            Don’t Republicans actually support civil unions now?

            It is a bit hard to make that argument, Jorge, when all but one of the party’s presidential candidates opposes both marriage and civil unions, and the one, although arguably the best man in the race, doesn’t have a pray in hell of getting the nomination.

            I’ll grant you that rank and file Republicans are starting to come around, little by slowly, just like the rest of America, but I look are the internal politics of the party — who votes in primaries, who is active at the grass roots, and where the money comes from — and it find it hard to see a path a turnaround in the party’s position — the platform and the positions politicians campaign on — before 2020.

            In terms of moving the party toward a more reasonable position on LGBT issues, the Tea Party movement was a real setback for the party, in my view. I think that the case could be made, before the 2010 election cycle, that most Republican politicians didn’t give a damn, one way or the other, about marriage equality or civil unions, and that all but a fervent few were pandering.

            But a lot of these Tea Party folk do seem to be hard-core social conservatives, as are the politicians they elected in 2010. I don’t think that is going to change in the 2012 cycle.

  4. posted by Tom on

    So which one is more likely to make a difference in the 2012 election cycle?

  5. posted by Houndentenor on

    “Don’t Republicans actually support civil unions now? ”

    Has any GOP state platform endorsed civil unions? Are any Republicans proposing civil unions bills in the statehouses?

  6. posted by BobN on

    “Republicans actually support civil unions now”

    If by “Republicans”, you mean regular old voters who declare themselves members of the party, yes. If you mean politicians, well, put down the bottle!

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