Primary voters: the big three aren’t worth your time or money

With every Democratic presidential candidate gunning for the LGBT community’s support, here’s a dose of reality: On LGBT issues alone, there’s nothing that makes any of the three frontrunners stand out enough to merit your money, much less the endorsement of this newspaper.

Why do I mention money instead of votes? Because that’s what the candidates want - and need - from you. They already know that they’ve got your vote come November 2008. Honestly, are you really going to pull the lever for Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani or John McCain? Not even the Log Cabin Republicans -the group of conservative gays who proudly backed Bob Dole for president in 1996 - can stomach anyone in the GOP field this time around. The crop of anti-evolution, anti-gay, anti-intellectual Republicans running for president is an embarrassment to the country. Giuliani and Romney have disgraced themselves with their backtracking from well-documented previous stances on social issues like gay rights in the hopes of garnering support from religious conservatives. McCain hasn’t been quite as audacious as New York’s former mayor and our former governor in this regard, but his hat-in-hand performance at the ultra-conservative Liberty University in spring 2006 should scare off any self-respecting LGBT person, much less anyone who thinks the U.S. Constitution still means something.

Let’s be clear: All of the LGBT campaign steering committees and lists of prominent LGBT supporters touted by the Democratic campaigns are propagated for one purpose alone - to raise money for the candidates. And if the gays are good at anything, it’s raising money. An August 2007 Community Marketing, Inc. survey of LGBT political participation showed that 31 percent of lesbian respondents had donated money in the 2004 presidential campaign; 40 percent of gay male respondents had done the same. By contrast, only seven percent of the general population donated money in the 2004 campaign.

But Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards don’t deserve your dollars. On all the major LGBT issues, Clinton, Obama and Edwards are basically in lock-step: Yes to civil unions, no to marriage; yes to ending "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell"; yes to trans-inclusive ENDA; yes to trans-inclusive hate crimes; yes to repealing some or all of DOMA. It would be heartwarming if all of the candidates arrived at these mostly pro-LGBT positions because they were bold crusaders for civil rights. But that’s not the case. They’ve merely settled on what the Democrats have staked out as a safe, consensus position, just far enough ahead of where the party was in 2004 to give a sense of progress but not so far as to threaten Middle America. That’s not leadership, it’s poll-tested and party-approved pandering, pure and simple.

<snip>

http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=editorial&sc2=&sc3=&id=54312

A good read and food for thought.

I think it was in NH. They apparently talked to all the candidates and settled on him.

zalinda

Out of the top three I think he's the one I'd most likely 'settle' for too... but he ain't exactly my dream vote.

but a living reality in the state of Massachusetts - same sex marriage - seems so impossible to our holy triumvirate of Clinton-Obama-Edwards?

For 7 years I have been asking anybody who would listen to tell me exactly what our LGBT-friendly Senator Clinton has done on our behalf - and nobody has been able to give me a response. After reading this, now I know why.

Nothing. She, the elected lawmaker who is in a position to do something concrete and affirmative for the LGBTs she claims to want a partnership with, has done nothing.

And the other two with their religious homophobia baggage they refuse to let go.

None of those three is working for us. Always keep that in mind. We may give 5 times more money than the average American, but what do we really get for it? I think that is what this excellent article is showing us.

Thanks for posting.

Everyone of that stature has either died of old age or been assassinated.

With all the "who's the best person for the GLBT community" posts, this needs to kept in perspective.

:applause: :woohoo: :toast: to the Bay Windows.

:grr: :spank: :banghead: to the candidates.

Thanks for the link, Meegbear! A nicely thought-out, well reasoned editorial.

I posted it that day, and got caught in the shuffle.

With the 'my candidate does more for the GLBT community ...' posts, this lays it out exactly.

This poll?

(Not that I'm trying to resurrect it or anything :innocent: ) Sorry it got lost in the shuffle.

I didn't scroll down far enough in my journal. Again, sorry it got lost in the shuffle, but thanks for reposting it.