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Democratic advisor predicts limited backlash for Obama over marriage equality
May 15, 2012
Community/Meta Marriage equality
By Jacob Combs
Writing in The Week, Democratic advisor Robert Shrum, who worked on both the 2000 and 2004 presidential race as well as many senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns, takes a close look at the possible electoral effect of President Obama’s announcement in support of marriage equality last week. Since Obama’s ABC interview with Robin Roberts, pundits have been quick to predict how the president’s move will either help or harm him, pointing to the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina and George W. Bush’s 2004 victory on the coattails of a marriage ban in Ohio as proof.
But as Shrum points out, the individual dynamics of the swing states that will be up for grabs in November show that any backlash against Obama that might come from anti-gay voters is likely to be minimal:
Not only do a majority of Americans now favor same-sex marriage, but 50 percent of Ohio Republicans favor it or civil unions. And the Ohio outcome this time is likely to be shaped far less by Obama’s position on marriage equality and far more by Romney’s opposition to the auto bailout — which would have devastated the Buckeye State.
Iowa and Virginia are frequently cited — but it very likely won’t happen there. Obama has a 10-point lead in Iowa, where voters wouldn’t do again what they did in the tea-fouled year of 2010, removing three of the state’s Supreme Court justices who had joined a unanimous opinion striking down a ban on same-sex marriage. That decision still stands. And the old Virginia of Jerry Falwell is increasingly outweighed by the new Virginia that stretches from the Washington suburbs to Richmond.
Well, then, what about North Carolina, which just passed an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment? The implicit assumption is obvious, simple, and wrong. Here is the bottom line: In any swing state, voters for whom animus to marriage equality is the single, burning issue aren’t casting a ballot for Obama anyway. If you are so intent on discriminating against gay Americans that this issue alone determines your presidential choice then you are almost certainly uncomfortable with an African-American in the White House.
Shrum also points out the illogic in two other predictions of marriage equality fall-out: that Obama’s announcement will rile up the religious right and that it will lose him support amongst African-Americans. While some have said that making marriage equality an issue will cause religious conservatives who are skeptical of Mitt Romney to rally behind the Republican nominee and break up the apathy they’ve been feeling (and showing) during the Republican primaries, it’s hard to imagine these conservative voters would have sat out the election rather than come out to the polls in favor of whatever alternative to Barack Obama they were presented with.
In terms of the African-American vote, Shrum predicts the opposite of the conventional punditry wisdom that socially conservative blacks may become less enthusiastic in their support of the president. To the contrary, he argues that Obama’s leadership could persuade more of the African-American community to rethink its position on marriage equality, which could end up having an significant effect on marriage referendums in states like Maryland.
In the end, the electoral effects of last week’s announcement will probably be limited: marriage equality will not be a central issue on voters’ minds come November. And in a way, that’s a real victory. With any luck, once Democrats (and other politicians) see that supporting equal rights isn’t the electoral albatross that it may have seemed, they will be persuaded to campaign for those rights more aggressively, creating a kind of virtuous cycle that will speed up the progression of LGBT equality in our country.
UPDATE: Writing in The Daily Beast, Allison Samuels examines the possibility of the shift amongst black voters that Shrum lays out in his article. Also, in a Pew Research Center poll released yesterday, 68% of black respondents said that Obama’s interview had no effect on their opinion of him, while 16% said it made them view him more positively and only 13% said it made them view him less positively. Those numbers are even better than the overall numbers, and the numbers for white voters, demonstrating that marriage is unlikely to be a wedge issue between Obama and the African-American community this election.
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10 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
RAJ | May 15, 2012 at 8:33 am
Off Topic – An Update:
A little less than a month ago (April 16th) Matt Baum observed on his "Marriage News Watch" that Washington State's Ref. 74 had been — to that point— slow to gather signatures, with just over 5,000 listed on the http://www.preservemarriagewashington.com website.
As of this morning, they're listing a little over 89,000 (they're hoping for 150,000, which gives them some breathing room for the required 120,000)
As had been predicted, this looks likely to make it onto the November ballot.
2.
James Sweet | May 15, 2012 at 9:42 am
Warning that this guy is a bit of a smart ass (I love 'im, though), but here is some interesting data on the question of whether African-American voters will abandon Obama. Bottom line: In 2008, while support for marriage equality was a good predictor of which whites voted for Obama, it did not at all predict which blacks would vote for Obama, and was only an okay predictor of which other minorities would vote for Obama. Or to put it more simply: While gay-hatin' whites voted overwhelmingly for McCain in 2008, gay-hatin' African-Americans predominantly voted for Obama anyway. The same is likely to happen this November.
3.
Sagesse | May 15, 2012 at 9:52 am
Well, that didn't last long. @
4.
_BK_ | May 15, 2012 at 9:54 am
I've been following this as well. It's very unfortunate. I'd have loved for them to fall short of their goal and then face the legal repercussions of the Proposition 8 trial.
5.
Stefan | May 15, 2012 at 10:34 am
The bottom line is that they've been slow to collect signatures. In Maine the gay marriage foes already collected the required amount one month before the deadline. That alone is a good sign for us in November.
BTW the actual deadline is May 31, since the Secretary of State needs time to count them. They still have a ways to go if they want to meet their goal.
6.
RAJ | May 15, 2012 at 10:50 am
NOTHING would make me happier than to see them fail to collect enough signatures in time.
I've head that NOM and company have recently decided to move to paid signature gatherers for the final push. Any info on that?
7.
Bronor K | May 15, 2012 at 1:23 pm
<img src="http://www.wsale.net/qy/oue.jpg">Well obama got what he needed, and the activists really did him a favor i think.<img src="http://www.wsale.net/qyl/ppa.jpg">
8.
Glen | May 15, 2012 at 4:49 pm
One wonders if organizations like NOM might WANT them to fail to collect enough signatures.
If this winds up on the ballot that is just one more opportunity for voters to approve of marriage equality, and in Washington that seems like a very good possibility.
If in any one or more of the remaining states looking at this issue this year, Washington, Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota approve of marriage equality or reject an amendment, then NOM will lose one of their favorite and most compelling talking points…. That every state where the people have been allowed to vote directly on this, they have rejected same-sex marriage (marriage equality).
It looks likely they will lose that talking point regardless, but Washington is just one more likely candidate for them to lose it, and they would MUCH rather say "Gay marriage was imposed on Washingtonians by an out-of-touch legislature".
9.
Reformed | May 15, 2012 at 6:02 pm
If the maintain the current rate of collection, will the get enough? I don't know when they started. I assume that the rate slows over time.
10.
Steve B | May 15, 2012 at 10:16 pm
The people who really want to stop marriage equality weren't going to vote for Obama anyway.
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