A Washington Examiner column notes the following tidbit about one of Mitt Romeny’s biggest donors:
Hedge fund millionaire Paul Singer also gave Romney’s super-PAC $1 million in November. . . . But Singer’s biggest cause in 2011 was not partisan — he spent $1 million lobbying to legalize gay marriage in New York state. That puts Singer not only far to the left of the GOP base and Romney, but also to the left of President Obama, who publicly opposes gay marriage. Singer’s son married a man in Massachusetts. . . .Singer’s million-dollar check doesn’t suggest Mitt is pro-gay-marriage. . . . But it’s revealing that these are Romney’s biggest donors. At the very least, it highlights the difference between the GOP’s electoral base and its money base.
I guess it does.
Also worth noting briefly, this interesting profile in the Washington Blade of formerly closeted former GOP congressman Bob Bauman, whose view today is conservative-libertarian and a pox on both parties.
11 Comments for “Two Bits”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Hedge fund millionaire Paul Singer also gave Romney’s super-PAC $1 million in November. . . . But Singer’s biggest cause in 2011 was not partisan — he spent $1 million lobbying to legalize gay marriage in New York state.
I wonder what possesses a man like Singer to pump money into the campaign of a man who did everything he could think of (including dragging out that old 1913 law) to thwart marriage equality in Massachusetts and is now in bed with Maggie Gallagher and her crowd, supporting the FMA, supporting DOMA, pledging “original intent” justices and so on.
It is because men like Singer keep pouring in the money that panderers like Romney can get away with thumbing their noses at us all, including Singer.
I don’t understand pro-gay Republicans, I guess. To me, funding Romney is like paying someone to slit your throat.
posted by Wilberforce1 on
Pro gay Republicans fund Romney for his tax policy. Period.
For uneducated Republicans, it’s all about hoarding cash. Everything else is a distant third. They probably weren’t taught concepts like noblesse oblige, and they rightly expect their capital to shield them from oppression.
Emotional issues common to a group are easy to spot, because most people in the group act the same way and for the same reason.
Having seeing a ton of hatred, trans people have a victim complex. After being crushed by fundamnetalists, JMG people are religion phobic. And the people here have the extreme selfishness of low culture Republicans, which motivates all of their actions and arguments.
posted by Jorge on
No, you don’t. For someone who is one of this site’s premier history and politics buffs, you sure can be out of touch sometimes.
I think I understand anti-Republican gays at least passing well.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
No, you don’t. For someone who is one of this site’s premier history and politics buffs, you sure can be out of touch sometimes.
I guess I am, Jorge. I’m certainly out of touch with the mindset of pro-gay conservatives who support anti-gay candidates. I don’t understand why they keep feeding the dog that bites them.
As I see things, the Republican Party is not going to change if men like Romney can hold up his anti-marriage record in Massachusetts as a badge of honor, sign “the pledge”, and otherwise support the anti-gay agenda, but the money keeps rolling in from pro-marriage money men like Paul Singer as if nothing had happened or ever been said.
Here’s a different course Singer could have taken: Paul Singer could have told Romney “Sorry, Mitt, I want change in the Republican Party on marriage and other issues affecting gays and lesbians, so I’m giving the million you are asking for to the four Republican pro-marriage NY Senators, the four Republican pro-marriage Washington Senators, and other Republican candidates who will help bring change.”
Mind you, I’m not suggesting that pro-gay conservatives vote for Democrats or give money to Democrats. I’m suggesting that pro-gay conservatives give their support to other pro-gay conservatives, and withhold support from anti-gay conservatives.
We’ve got a saying out in the sticks, one I heard a lot from older men when I was young and one I find myself saying to younger men now that I am old: “Actions have consequences>” It is a way of reminding young men hellbent for the ditch that they had better change their ways before they get into real trouble.
Well, as long as Singer and other pro-gay conservatives keep funding men like Romney, actions don’t have consequences. And as long as that’s true, nothing’s going to change.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, what Singer realizes, Tom Scharbach, is that Obama Party gays and lesbians like yourself have a remarkably flexible definition of what constitutes “anti-gay” — which, as you and your Obama Party staffer friends like Hilary Rosen, Andrew Tobias, Rick Rosendall, and others have made abundantly clear, is that it is determined solely by political affiliation.
This is a fine example. Singer dares donate to someone you don’t like and immediately you start branding him an anti-gay hatemonger, insisting that he wants to slit gays’ throats.
Granted, that attitude is understandable, Tom Scharbach. As long as the Obama Party succeeds, you succeed. Obama Party politicians in power mean you get paid, you get to avoid paying taxes, you get to vote as many times as you want, you get to force businesses and churches to do whatever you want, you get government “stimulus” funds without actually having to produce things, and you avoid at all costs being judged by such things as character or merit instead of sexual orientation.
Hence your rhetoric about slitting throats. Indeed, a vote for Republicans slits YOUR throat; it removes your privileged position and requires you to start actually working, earning a living, paying taxes, and being judged by the content of your character rather than your minority status.
But of course, if you were to acknowledge that it’s your own position you were protecting, that makes you incredibly selfish-looking. Hence you hide behind the rhetoric of “antigay” and “slitting throats”, even though by doing so you make yourself look like a bigot and gays and lesbians look like helpless fools incapable of thinking past which politician panders the most to sexual orientation.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Singer dares donate to someone you don’t like and immediately you start branding him an anti-gay hatemonger, insisting that he wants to slit gays’ throats.
You either have an a hyperactive imagination or poor reading comprehension skills. Where do you come up with such nonsense?
Obama Party politicians in power mean you get paid, you get to avoid paying taxes, you get to vote as many times as you want, you get to force businesses and churches to do whatever you want, you get government “stimulus” funds without actually having to produce things, and you avoid at all costs being judged by such things as character or merit instead of sexual orientation. Hence your rhetoric about slitting throats. Indeed, a vote for Republicans slits YOUR throat; it removes your privileged position and requires you to start actually working, earning a living, paying taxes, and being judged by the content of your character rather than your minority status.
Bosh.
The irony is that I am retired and living primarily off my investments, paying capital gains rates and enjoying life in the low-tax zone, and, dissatisfied with that happy state of affairs, the Republicans want to eliminate capital gains taxes altogether so that I can enjoy life even more, I guess. Go figure.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
That’s easy.
You made it clear you think Romney wants to slit gays’ throats, and that by funding him, Singer shows that he wants to slit gays’ throats.
Meanwhile, back to the point of which Singer is aware.
Namely, that your statement here:
is completely and demonstrably false.
It’s amazing, Tom Scharbach. You claim independence of thought, you invoke all these lofty principles, yet you can’t do the simplest thing and denounce your Obama Party’s leadership and the leadership of the gay and lesbian community for voting for and giving money and volunteer time to politicians who, if they were Republicans, you would be screaming hate gays and want to put them in concentration camps.
Don’t worry, I understand why; pissing off the DNC treasurer and several lobbyists by publicly denouncing them would likely get you called into Graeme’s office and fired. Party before principles, as you Obama sorts always say and do.
And finally:
Which means, according to your party’s own OWS rhetoric, that you are a selfish person and a criminal who stole from others and should have his wealth forcibly taken from him.
If you were honest, Tom Scharbach, according to your own party’s rhetoric, you wouldn’t hide your income like this and you would pay higher taxes, because, as you and your party always say, the government knows better than you do how to spend your money, and you aren’t entitled to any portion of it.
So you’re a hypocrite.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
That’s easy.
You made it clear you think Romney wants to slit gays’ throats, and that by funding him, Singer shows that he wants to slit gays’ throats.
I see you have trouble recognizing simile as well as metaphor.
Nonetheless, Paul Singer contributed $1 million to secure marriage equality in New York so that his son could marry, and then contributed $1 million to elect a presidential candidate pledged to (1) invalidate the marriage by passage of the FMA, and (b) ensure that the marriage is never granted recognition at the federal level. Whether or not that is like paying someone to slit your throat, the two contributions work at cross purposes, the latter working to undo the end achieved by the former.
The more important point, though, is the point of my comment, which you did not address: If pro-equality conservatives continue to put their support behind anti-equality conservatives, rather than withholding support from anti-equality conservatives and instead supporting pro-equality conservatives, the Republican Party has no incentive to change from an anti-equality to a pro-equality position. Eventually, the Party’s anti-equality positions having no internal consequences, the Party is going to run itself into a ditch with the voters, as Stephen Miller has been pointing out of late. Stephen’s right on this score.
posted by Houndentenor on
Way back in 2006 David Koh published a book about the Bush administration’s disdain for the leadership of the social/religious conservative movement. It seemed to have little impact on that group. The country club Republicans have never liked the Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson crowd. I don’t know that this is any surprise. They also never had much of a problem with gay people (see: the Reagans’ friendships with gay people from Hollywood) so long as they kept it in the back alleys and not out in broad daylight. What is distasteful is that this donor will give to gay causes and to Republicans, but never demand from Republicans that they move towards equality or at least tone down the rhetoric. That’s not going to happen until it starts costing them elections (and even then it’s going to continue to be a problem in the primaries).
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Singer knows that, as I’ve pointed out above, Houndentenor doesn’t have ANY problem with the FMA, gay marriage bans, or discrimination when people of the right political affiliation are doing them.
As is obvious, “antigay” simply means “Republican” or “not Obama Party”. People have caught on to that fact, and have simply started to proceed through their lives knowing that people like Tom Scharbach and Houndentenor are really nothing more than mindless bigots who use “antigay” the same way their fellow Obama Party member Al Sharpton uses “racist”.
posted by BobN on
Another interesting thread derailed.
Singer isn’t pro-gay, not in any meaningful way. He’d be chucking money at Santorum if Santorum appeared to be the GOP’s choice.