I should have emphasized the words at the moment in my previous post. Obama does need the support and enthusiasm of the left base to win the election next year, but there is a lot of time until then. At the moment, he really needs to raise the debt ceiling. Giving the Republicans a chance to cast a vote for DOMA just gives all the freshmen something to add to their resumes on the plus side since they are going to have to eat some shit about raising the ceiling.
For the record, I do not think that Obama can safely ignore the gay rights movement, and I wouldn’t want him to. But these are general things. I don’t think their support is what he needs today.
Dan Savage has adopted a calm “wait and see” attitude regarding Obama’s gay politics. I recommend others do the same. As I recall from reading Savage Love last night, he drew attention to all the liberal (gay-positive) things Obama has accomplished while sounding practically Republican (anti-gay) about them. Pay attention to what he DOES, not what he SAYS.
If paying lip-service to the anti-gay teabaggers is what it takes to sneak gay rights past the far right, I’m 100% for it. And it’s already working. Dan knows it. His readers know it. Chill-freakin-lax.
And who the F are pro-gay voters going to support instead? Bachmann? SANTORUM? Don’t make me laugh.
Yes, a calm “wait and see” is probably the right approach. If nothing else, it eases heartburn and anxiety.
I think Shodan is right in that the timing must be calculated. Obama wouldn’t do it earlier because, presumably, the political consequences would have been unacceptable (in his opinion). Now the political consequences are apparently acceptable. I’m not sure what has changed; perhaps it’s the general positive acceptance of the New York legislative change, combined with the (apparent) constitutional weakness of DOMA as a law. Whatever, I think we can take away from this that it is now the opinion of the Obama administration that SS marriage is no longer poison.
Or maybe it has to do with the budget negotiations. Deep waters!
Roddy
Sure there’s an alternative - stay home and don’t vote at all. Even an incumbent has to energize his base.
If you want to talk about something that makes no sense, this is it. Where on earth did you get the notion that Obama wants anyone to vote for a Republican? He doesn’t.
He’s just giving you a little head fake. He’s making it look like he is actually doing something to bring about gay marriage. Sort of - it doesn’t take much to bring y’all trotting obediently back, so “not much” is what he is doing. Just talk about it, and hope nobody asks why he didn’t try it back when he had some chance of bringing it off.
I’m surprised this needs to be spelled out, but one implication inherent in outing Obama’s actions as only politically opportune pandering is that we therefore shouldn’t vote for him.
Obama’s motive is not the real issue here. A sitting American president has just come out in support of marriage equality. That is a huge development that I didn’t think was possible just three years ago. Even if he did it as part of some political strategy, the fact that he could do it, in the runup to an election campaign, is a sign that the world has changed, and a cause for me to celebrate.
Exactly. This isn’t about winning the legislative battle right now or the court battle right now or the anything battle right now except for the battle for hearts and minds. In 2004, people were so terrified of the gays that they went to the polls to express their fear. In 2011, the president is supporting an end to DOMA. These are big strides we are making as a country. I don’t care if Obama is at the front or the middle or toward the rear of the pack. He supports an end to DOMA. That’s awesome.
A public statement of support from the President of the United States to end DOMA is not trivial, no matter how much one tries to cast aspersions on his motives.
But, with the climate in Washington, I can not predict anything with certainty.
My grandpop was around when Medicare came into being. My great grandpop was one of the first to collect Social Security after never paying a dime into it.
Just the fact that President Obama would consider cuts to Medicare or Social Security, let alone actually speak of it has ended my donations to the Democratic Party until this deficit ceiling matter is resolved. I answered a recent DNC survey with a few choice words, “Change Medicare or SS, and you lose our family.” Some have said Obama is merely playing politics to reach independent voters. Let’s hope so.
I have never cast a Republican vote, and never missed an election. I may just be “too busy” on election day 2012 to get to the polls.
For what it’s worth. I mostly agree with Shodan on this one. Obama is making a political gesture here.
A DOMA repeal is almost certainly not going to pass with the current Congress. So Obama can score some points with gays by saying that he tried to repeal DOMA but the Republicans stopped him.
But Obama doesn’t have to worry about the backlash among those of his working class supporters who don’t support gay marriage - they would have been upset if DOMA had actually been repealed but they’ll overlook an empty attempt like this.
This is the equivalent of some conservative politician introducing an anti-abortion bill that he knows will get voted down. It’s just something to show one part of his base that he tried without risking the loss of another part of his base.
Actually, a while ago he issued an executive order to construe the language of federal benefits laws to include same-sex spouses where it wasn’t directly contradictory to the language in DOMA. Thus, gay federal employees could list their spouses as a “dependent” or “family member” (or something along these lines) for benefits where those terms were used in the relevant statutes, while benefits limited to “spouses,” “husbands” or “wives” were forbidden under DOMA. I think even slightly before that, the State Department extended spousal benefits to its same-sex married couples. And most significantly, his Justice Department has declined to defend the lawsuits challenging DOMA recently. The matter is likely to end up at the Supreme Court before Congress has enough votes to pass a repeal bill, so this could be very important. As it is, deportations of immigrants legally married to US citizens seem to be stalled as the immigration courts figure out what to do.
He’s always been publicly against DOMA. He hasn’t endorsed a bill to repeal it before, but there hasn’t been a bill to repeal it before. And the Democrats wouldn’t have had the votes to pass it when they were in charge. DADT repeal was hard enough, and that’s a lot more popular. I mean, you had guys like Robert Byrd in the caucus. It had nothing to do with Obama, but trying to pass DOMA repeal, and seeing it die to a filibuster by all Republicans plus a couple anti-gay Dems doesn’t help anyone.
Basically, there was never a time when he could repeal DOMA, and he’s done more than squat anyways.
I’d spell enthusiasm, enthu$ia$m. He needs to get people to open their wallets so he can build up a war chest. I doubt he would have said this if there was the slightest chance that a repeal bill would hit his desk before the election, since this wouldn’t be a popular issue in the black church community and he wants near total black turnout on election day.
He may have some genuine heartfelt beliefs on this issue, but I doubt we are going to find out what they are until 2013, because what he believes doesn’t mean squat unless he wins the election.
So you would in essence cast a vote for the party that actually would do away with social security and medicare? ahhh, the eternal problem of the Democratic circle firing squad. What kind of cuts are we talking about? Obama has always been a compromiser, he does not let perfect stand in the way of the good. I can envision certain cuts to those programs, how about raising the retirement age? People live longer than they did fifty years ago and what was meant as a short term retirement program is paying out much longer than anticipated. You would need to have provisions for those working in professions in which age becomes a hazard or prevents them from working altogether, but I bet something could be figured out.
But oh, to have a rational talk, like adults do, means losing voters in a snit. The same thing applies to DOMA. Obama has done plenty to advance the rights of gays and lesbians in this country, but he is given almost no credit for it. Until now has there been a bill in Congress to repeal DOMA? I am guessing there has been nothing with real support behind it. This effort will go nowhere, but Obama clearly believes that the legislative solution needed to be started by Congress and then he could voice his support.
To those who say he could have done something about DOMA earlier, tell me when? When the Democrats controlled both houses, but the Republicans filibustered who to order lunch from? You might recall that there were, and are, some pressing financial issues this country is facing and Obama was already criticized for “trying to do much.” Since then he has been faced with a House that is willing to see the country face financial ruin rather than compromise, do you think they were going to pass a repeal of DOMA? Obama has never as President had a chance to repeal DOMA. Someone in Congress has sponsored a bill repealing DOMA and it is getting some real attention, so Obama takes the opportunity to support it. That costs him no votes he was going to get anyways and signals a change in his long standing personal beliefs. It goes further to making it a campaign issue in which the Republicans and the TeaPers are further away from the mainstream.
No, it translates to “I can tell when a politician is pandering even when it is Obama”.
Now? No. Back when his party controlled all three parts of the federal government was rather a different story. But he didn’t do it then, he is doing it now. Some folks draw conclusions from this. Others, not so much.