Although John McCain became the certain GOP presidential nominee months ago, James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, the richest and most powerful of religious right organizations, has refused to endorse him. And by refusing to offer McCain a free ride, he succeeded in pushing him to make concession after concession to social conservatives. That explains, in no small measure, McCain's initial response opposing adoptions by same-sex couples. Having achieved what he wanted, Dobson is now considering, at this late date, providing his endorsement.
In contrast, although Barack Obama opposes same-sex marriage, and for months failed to publicly express opposition to California's same-sex marriage-banning initiative (only doing so on July 1), as soon as he clinched the Democratic nomination he was unconditionally endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign and most other inside the beltway Democratic GLBT fundraising vehicles. And the amount of political capital Obama has pledged to spend on behalf of gay equality even when push comes to shove, as opposed to much feel-good political rhetoric, remains remarkably slim.
16 Comments for “It’s Called Playing Hardball”
posted by Attmay on
Conservative support for McCain has been begrudging at best. He was nobody’s first choice among GOP supporters.
Still, he should at least act like he’s in this race.
Both candidates seem to have similar positions on either gay marriage or gay adoption that require intellectual gymnastics worthy of Mary Lou Retton to explain.
posted by Carl on
McCain has always been very conservative on gay issues. I don’t see how his opposing gay adoption means he was pandering to Dobson. If that were his goal, then he would have endorsed the Marriage Protection Amendment, which was a major issue for Dobson.
posted by avee on
It’s a testament to McCain that, despite needing the support of the religous right that he lacks, he has not flipped in his strong opposition to the federal marriage amendment, a courageous stance loudly delivered (he called it “un-Republican”), while Obama said little but did show up to vote against it, and thus won the effusive support of HRC.
But I think blogger Steve is right that McCain is trying to placate the social conservatives by shifting right on a number of secondary issues, including adoption (until gay Republicans and straight/gay libertarians let him know he would lose their support unless he shifted back toward the center on that one).
posted by RIchard on
They major difference is that the Focus on the Family/anti-gay religious right wing crowd has far more members and money then the ‘gay movement’.
McCain, who has always had a pretty reactionary political identity, cannot totally ignore these people if he wants to win the nominee and later key State EC.
In contrast, only roughly 4-5% percent of voters are willing to identify as gay and the largest gay rights organization in the nation — HRC — has noticeable less resources then say, the Christian Coalition.
This is why your comparison does not make sense.
posted by Priya Lynn on
attmay said “Both candidates seem to have similar positions on either gay marriage or gay adoption”.
Not true Obama supports civil unions whereas Mccain thinks gays should be happy with trying to get protection through “legal contracts”, Mccain is against gay adoption, Obama supports gay adoption, Obama favours repealing don’t ask/don’t tell, Mccain does not, Obama favours repealing the laughably named “Defense” of Marriage act whereas Mccain does not. Obama may not be perfect, but Mccain is the anti-christ.
posted by Mark on
Hi, I’m Stephen Miller, and have I ever mentioned that i think the HRC is a shill for the Democratic party and that the Democratic party does not deserve the loyalty of the LGBT community? Be sure to read my post next week, but if you can’t wait, just read my post from last week.
posted by Bobby on
“Conservative support for McCain has been begrudging at best. He was nobody’s first choice among GOP supporters.”
You’re right about that, McCain is his own worse enemy. Look at what he said about Obama at the NAACP convention:
“Let me begin with a few words about my opponent. Don?t tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways. He has inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them. His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud.
Of course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes. But it makes me proud to know the country I?ve loved and served all my life is still a work in progress, and always improving. Senator Obama talks about making history, and he?s made quite a bit of it already. And the way was prepared by this venerable organization and others like it. A few years before the NAACP was founded, President Theodore Roosevelt?s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult in many quarters.
America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the nomination of an African-American to be the presidential nominee of his party. Whatever the outcome in November, Senator Obama has achieved a great thing ? for himself and for his country ? and I thank him for it?”
http://getdrunkandvote4mccain.com/
posted by Michigan-Matt on
Stephen, as the gayLefites here like DUMP and Mark and others like to scream, playing hardball is all about McCain and the farRight Christian types –not about BarryO and the gayLeft/Democrat party hacks keeping the gay vote tied to the BarryO donkey.
The link you provided somehow never mentions McCain’s position on gay adoption or any policy position with a softening of Rev Dobson’s animosity toward the maverick anti-partisan, left of GOP center, politically progressive John McCain.
Frankly, Dobson HATES McCain and refused to endorse nearly the entire slate of GOPers as they ran for the nomination… Rudy-nope, Romney-nope, Thompson1 or Thompson2-double nopes, etc. Dobson’s closest “friends” inside his narrow, harshly unChristian world thought he could be seduced over to Huck-a-boom endorsement and it happened only on a queer “personal” level a couple days after Dobson publicly lambasted McCain just one more time for good measure.
McCain didn’t flipflop on gay adoptions or any other issue to secure a reconsideration of support from Rev Dobson… and frankly, given that McCain represents the maverick, non-Right, progressive center of the GOP, it’s unlikely that McCain could do enough to appease Dobson even if he personally picked Dobson himself for Veep and promised to die shortly after being sworn in.
On the other hand, BarryO is the appeasing, gotta-drive-the-ObamaBus-2-the-political-center candidate… but with two well known bigoted, racist homophobic black pastors in his corner already, not even BarryO needs Rev Dobson at this point.
Where’s the ego-centric Dobson to go? I hope McCain puts him on the shelf, on the sideline or in the margins… like the Moral Majority of 25+ yrs ago.
Hardball isn’t what politics should be about; it should be about what Americans need now, about leadership, about progress. Hardball is something inside political animals/winners “play” on the losers after an election… like BarryO has done to HRClinton. That’s hardball in textbook form.
I would only expect the HRC and others of their ilk to endorse BarryO –like labor, like corrupt innercity mayors, like eco-terror globalists, like BlameAmericaFirsters… the political “independents” are almost always Democrats masked and operating under a sheep hide.
For those guys, groups and BarryO… it’s not about Hope or Change or NewPolitics… it’s just the same, old, tired politics of personal destruction that the Clintons dumped on America for the last 15 years and BarryO intends to do for the next 8 years if the con works.
posted by Michigan-Matt on
line 1, para 2 correction: the above should have read “or any change in policy position”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
MM, I am not going to keep repeating my responses to your dishonest characterizations of Obama that you’ve made in other discussion threads.
I know where Steve is coming from (he is slamming leftist/Dem party hacks who have a history of putting party before principle). But where does the ferocity of your despisement of Obama come from? I don’t know why I bother to ask, since you will just repeat more of your bile. But the level of your ferocity (not just your opposition to the guy) seems rather fevered.
On gay issues, despite his flaws Obama is measurably better than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain (McCain being much worse). There is an effort underway by gay Obama supporters to dissuade Obama from naming Sam Nunn as his running mate. If Obama picked Nunn, it would certainly discourage a lot of us (though that still wouldn’t make Obama nearly as bad on gay issues as McCain).
To set an example of finding something good to say about a candidate I oppose: One fine and admirable thing that McCain did some years back was to help repeal a ban on HIV-positive servicemembers that had been added to the Defense Authorization Bill.
posted by Jorge on
I don’t think Obama has proved himself enough of an advocate for the gay community to merit an instant endorsement by any gay group. McCain even less. I appreciate where he holds back and in some senses that shows more leadership than Obama does. It was very nice of Obama to appear at an HRC-sponsored event and of McCain to appear on Ellen so soon after the California Supreme Court decision and I think they should both be treated a little differently because of the things they do and do not do. But I care far more about the War in Iraq.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Probably from the fact that Obama supports and endorses this sort of activity by the DNC.
One such action was the FIA-financed “Faith and Values Voters Guide,” created by Alabama?s Democratic party chairman and distributed before the Nov., 2006 election. The Voter?s Guide contained a section concerned with a “covenant for the future,” which included a plan to “require public schools to offer Bible literacy as part of their curriculum,” as well as to “defeat any efforts to redefine marriage or provide the benefits of marriage to a same-sex union”–language that seems to target civil unions and domestic partnerships as well as marriage equality, and which constitutes what gay and lesbian families who support the Democratic party might regard as a slap in the face.
Not to worry, though; since gay liberals and gay organizations have already demonstrated that pandering to religion is OK if you’re black and that supporting state and Federal Constitutional amendments is OK if you’re black, the precedent has already been set for Obama’s endorsement and support of such behavior by the DNC.
posted by Michigan-Matt on
Richard you offer “But where does the ferocity of your despisement of Obama come from? I don’t know why I bother to ask, since you will just repeat more of your bile.”
OK Richard, let’s not mark that as a rhetorical question and take it sincerely.
It isn’t bile unless you’re part of the DefendBarryO-at-all-costs gayLeft team… which I sense you are, no?
My judgement of BarryO comes from reading BarryO’s campaign statements in the press and on his website, his speeches on the floor of the Senate, watching him in Committee over the last 2.5 years, studying his sparse record of accomplishments in the Illinois Senate and surmising the threat his candidacy represents to America’s longterm interests and vividly remembering what damage his Democrat predecessors like Bill Clinton and JimmineyCricket did to our Nation and Free World and gay civil rights in just 8 and 4 short years, respectively.
BarryO’s candidacy grew out of the anti-military, anti-WOT farLeft radical wing of the Democrat Party… I don’t want those kind of people with those kind of values calling the shots in DC next January.
He’s untested by life. He’s untested in politics except in his ability to sell his message to the farLeft… otherwise, in this wildly pro-Democrat year, he should be up over McCain by 15-20-25 points right now.
He’s unequipped to be President no matter how much our competitors and enemies might profit from him being President -a little stat that the MSM loves to promote.
I felt the same way about Gore and Kerry. Did I despise the men? No. Do I despise BarryO as you allege? No. Would I cross the street to speak with him? Oh yeah, with pleasure and civility.
I’m glad you could write something nice about McCain. I don’t know why you think that matters or is some example of something other than lessons from the therapist’s couch… but here goes: Obama looks good on basketball court and the bowling alley.
I don’t offer that with bile… there’s a derth of policy accomplishments on BarryO’s ledger that makes anything equal to your admission (?) about McCain possible with BarryO.
posted by Richard on
(the other one) I have not made up my mind about who I will vote for (their was one wheel chair bound candidate that sound kinda smart).
If experience was such a deal breaker, then Bob Bar (LP candidate) has more incumebency experience then Mcain or Obama.
Mcain and Obama sound pretty much alike when it comes to foreign policy. Frankly, I do not trust either one of them, but at least Obama probably would at least give me an honest opinion based on good facts.
President Jimmy Carter did actually make some notable progress on gay right issues, as did President Clinton. Certainly more then (the only viable choice) Regan or Bush sr. ever did.
I also find it rather stupid to refer to a major presidential candidate, and US Senator as “BarryO”. I find that to be insulting, childish and without any moral merit.
If that is the level of maturity that Mcain and his supporters have for the political process…
Obama campaign started out as being opposed to the war, but so is most of the nation. The question is what do we need to do and how BEFORE we leave.
Mcain loves the USSC justices that have screwed us. He is wishy-washy on campaign law reform and — given his age and health — if we elect him we are really electing his VP.
posted by jk on
Stephen,
Why do you keep peddling the falsehood that Obama only made clear his views regarding the California proposition on July 1? It is demonstrably untrue, and it makes you look feckless and incompetent. I don’t think you deserve to look feckless and incompetent, but with the way that you keep repeating it it’s as if you are doing your best to prove me wrong.
Obama actually issued a statement declaring his opposition to the California and Florida bans on May 16, the day the California Supreme Court handed down its ruling. (See this reference, among as many as you’d need to find to satisfy yourself: http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Obama_s_Opposition_to_Marriage_Amendment_isn_t_News__5830.html)
It only takes a cursory Google search to learn the truth, Stephen. How “independent” can you be if you can’t even sort the media hype from the facts?
posted by Michigan-Matt on
Richard (the other one) writes: “I have not made up my mind about who I will vote for (their was one wheel chair bound candidate that sound kinda smart).”
You may be the only one who doesn’t know how YOU will vote on Election Day. Given your past statements here and all the sheep’s wool you keep trying to pull over yourself to hide your gayDemocrat positions on policy, you’ve be voting solidly, squarely for BarryO and probably on a str8 Democrat ticket, Richard.
That’s even with your usual “I’m a gayIndependent” ruse.