somewhat concerned. I was listening to Thom Hartman on Serius after the announcement and he had listeners call in with their views of the announcement. While many said President Obama did the right thing, most qualified this by saying that they feel it will hurt him. Yes, there were those who said this will help in the next election with liberals and Independents, it seemed to me that more thought it would hurt.

Yes, I'm sure there are conservative Democrats who might become less enthusiastic about voting for Obama, but Romney isn't getting much love from anybody even in his own party, and this will help Obama a lot with his base who weren't as excited about voting for him this time around.

I can't imagine too many Democrats actually switching their vote to Romney; they might just stay home, just like there are a lot of Republicans who probably won't bother to vote for their party's candidate, either.

I also wonder whether getting young people excited about being Democrats is the party's plan to keep them in the fold as those students grow older.

I feel that the people who are most upset about Obama's announcement are conservatives and/or religious nuts who wouldn't be voting for Obama anyway. I'm hoping that the conservatives who have someone gay in their family will now take a closer look at Obama and what he stands for. Hey, even Cheney is happy about it even though he won't be voting for President O. But, then again, we really don't know how he is going to vote in the secrecy of the voting booth, do we?

It will motivate many who might otherwise have been rather uninspired.