I’m wondering about turnout of voters, specifically. Back when it was a wedge issue that worked for the Rs to mobilize their base, they would frequently try to put a ballot proposition on the same fight card, to improve the electability of their candidates. Will the eventual R Presidential candidate try to make this a hot-button issue, or bury it to try to shift focus to something else (God knows what)? Will the Ds, sensing a shift in the tide, try to highlight it to increase the turnout of their base?
There will be all sorts of posturing in the Republican primaries about “religious freedom” but the eventual nominee will either avoid the subject or soften their stance in the general. Unless the Republicans do something wacky like nominate Ted Cruz, then it will become a huge issue and backfire horribly on him.
It would be hard to separate the effects, but I do have to think that the combination of the Charleston massacre, the ACA ruling, and the gay-marriage ruling will have an effect stronger than any of them individually. They simultaneously undermined the pro-gun, anti-minority, anti-Obamacare, and anti-gay piers that the current Republican platform rests upon, with little else to point to. They may have had a combined shock, due to their simultaneity, that will permanently turn away many of their wavering supporters. Plus, there’s no active and nonimaginary legislative or judicial route left to proceed with, on gay rights or on ACA, that they can ask voters to support, and the dogwhistles on race and guns are muted.
This was a very bad week for the Republicans, without question, and it may be identifiable in a year and a half as the week Hillary Clinton won the Presidency and the Democrats took back the Senate. What sort of week could there be that would have made the reverse happen?
A very bad week might well galvanize the conservative base more than it would had the SCOTUS decisions gone their way. Democrats are confident about 2016, but I see the possibility of a backlash coming with even more white males landing in the GOP camp.
This seems to make sense at first blush, but can you expound on what you think might make a white male Dem vote GOP next year? The court ruling alone? The backlash against the Confederate flag?
I could be dead wrong, but this presumes that HRC is the candidate. I think she might have a hard time with males, particularly white males. It wouldn’t be a single issue problem, but more of the right/left pendulum swing we’ve seen over the years. A moderate Republican could beat Hillary, it’s just a matter of them nominating one.
It will affect voter turnout depending on how hard Republicans choose to keep hammering on it. Scott Walker has already proposed a Constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, even though there’s zero chance of it happening. This is the kind of thing Republicans say to kiss up to primary voters in Iowa, but if they keep it up it will come back to bite them in the general election.
Even though I don’t agree with his position, IMO Jeb Bush had the smartest response. Instead of calling the Supreme Court a bunch of “unelected lawyers” who should have based their decision on the Bible (a convenient argument when it’s a decision you don’t agree with), he essentially said it should be a states’ rights issue and that we should love our neighbors. Done and let’s move on.
On gay rights, no. The issue is settled, and the wingnuts in the Republican clown car who announced that they are going to seek a constitutional amendment to outlaw SSM are not going to attract anyone outside the usual lunatic fringe.
On ACA, though, SCOTUS only ruled that the various pretexts used to try to invalidate it were baseless. It wasn’t granted any sort of protected status and is technically subject to any legislative amendment that the election results might empower. But positions on it are pretty much entrenched, and those who want to see it overturned completely are, again, the usual low-information lunatic fringe whose makeup I imagine remains unchanged, and the candidates who pander to them are the usual opportunistic windbags.
So as much as I’d like to think otherwise, I don’t see the recent SCOTUS rulings either helping Dems or making any difference at all in 2016. What is going to make a difference is Citizens United and its recent predecessor rulings, whereby everyone will hear, loud and clear and with saturation coverage over all media – television, radio, print, and Internet, 24 hours a day for at least a year leading up to November 2016 – why it’s essential for every patriot who loves America and values Freedom™ to vote Republican. Honestly, those are the rulings that make a difference to political outcomes.
It’s too far away, specially since nothing bad is actually going to happen to anyone. There won’t be any gun control, there won’t be any ACA catastrophe’s and absolutely no one will be harmed by marriage equality. In a year and a half none of this will galvanize anyone.
This may be the break the J-Bush campaign has been waiting for!
Actually seriously.
He needs of course to win the nomination AND earn general electorate favorability points.
A large portion of GOP voters are actually FOR, minimally, considering this a settled matter and moving on. 61% of young Republicans actually favored legalizing gay marriage. Many of those who are against it minimally recognize that rhetoric to continue the fight is silly, even they wished the ruling went the other way.
Many candidates are staking out the strident “religious freedom”/“states’ rights” space and will split that group. J-Bush will appear to refuse to pander, and plays the “let’s move on” card. This will be supported by a plurality if not majority of GOP voters and earn favorability points with the general electorate.
It will be a non-issue in the general other than having earned that general sense of increased favorability.
The SSM decision won’t be a successful wedge issue for the Republicans (though they might try to use it anyway). The election is a year and a half away, which means that people in all fifty states will have a year and a half to see gay neighbors getting married without drastic consequence, and in general just being the same as straight people. In the face of that normalcy, most of the opposition to gay marriage will evaporate, just as it’s already evaporated in all of the states that already allowed it. There will still be some opponents, the self-hating homophobes and those too stubborn to change their mind, but it won’t be enough to make a big difference.
The gay marriage issue will affect the GOP primary but not likely the election as Bush is going to be the nominee. Sure, the evangelicals will use this as a litmus test but there are so many in the clown car to split their vote it won’t make much difference.
The ACA decision may finally take this off the table, the far right crowd will still piss and moan but the rest of the GOP will be ready to move on in 2016.
The Confederate flag flap will have little impact. The candidates won’t touch it with a 10’ pole and let’s face it, if you own a Confederate flag you’re already a Republican voter.
I figure anyone who is that opposed to same-sex marriage was already pretty much committed to the Republican party. It’s been pretty clear in the last decade or more, which party is more opposed to gay rights.
I think this might actually be a net gain for the Democrats. There’s a lot of people who are apathetic about elections because they feel there’s no essential difference between the way two parties govern. This decision could serve as a reminder that it does make a difference who get elected.
Especially when you point out that it means who will be nominating possible SCOTUS’s (Scoti?)
True. I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that Al Gore would have nominated Roberts and Alito or that John McCain would have nominated Sotomayer and Kagan.
It will affect motivation. If you are motivated primarily by opposition or support for gay rights, then you are probably less likely to vote.
Chris Cilizza sees the decision as a huge favor for Republicans:
Because it relieves them of the responsibility to have an actual plan of their own, letting them indulge in pure, joyous denunciation and fearmongering instead.
That is not really a good thing, my friend.
How about those who were reliable Republican voters because of their opposition to gay marriage? Will they now be free to vote for their economic self-interest (Democratic)? Or will they now be energized to vote Republican in hopes of appointing the successor to Ginsberg?
More things that hit the Republicans this week: The pope affirming global warming is real, and calling participants in the gun industry hypocritical if they also call themselves Christian. Also, new polls showing ACA is now more popular than not, and on the rise too.
What *do *they stand for that didn’t take a blow this week?