Of course, there’s an even greater problem here than the lie that this President actually supports an end to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (at least enough to actually work toward it). There’s the matter of that election we have coming up…
The old conventional wisdom out there is that Democrats have to run to the right if they hope to win. Of course, we’ve had two decades to prove to Democratic politicians that running to the right is a loser. The base stays home and the right will never vote for Democrats. Given that GLBT voters have a much higher turnout than voters at large, democrats pissing off the gay vote could pay dividends in November — for the Republican Party.
Kos talks about the enthusiasm gap on his blog quite frequently — and he’s right. Democrats are in trouble over it. Republicans are revved up and ready to go, while a huge chunk of the Democratic base is at this moment willing to sit it out, because they don’t feel as though their concerns have been addressed.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell isn’t the only key issue to the Democratic Base — an immigration reform vote may be even more important — but it’s probably the key issue to the GLBT community right now, along with ENDA. Simply put, if neither ENDA nor DADT gets passed, the Democrats will be lucky to get half the normal turnout rate amongst the GLBT population, which is a much larger percent of the voting population than the population at large. If 5% of the population identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, it’s probably almost 10% out of those who regularly vote — enough voters to make the difference between crushing defeat and holding the line.
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Update: I can’t believe I forgot to mention the draconian measures the administration has taken to squelch the protests against their efforts to kill DADT repeal this year. Just on Tuesday, several service members and former service members peacefully assembled on the back of the White House to protest DADT and chained themselves to the fence — as just happened a few weeks ago, peacefully and respectfully — but this time the administration had the protest squelched and in a downright Orwellian move barred cameras or press from being able to film the protesters’ arrests.
Here’s a video:
I’m sick of politicians telling the gays to wait.
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p>And I’m sick of the media narrative telling politicians that “the middle” is where the voters are.
First off I would argue that the position of repealing DADT is now widely favored by a solid majority of Americans and is now an easy centrist position to hold regarding gay rights. Civil unions and overturning DADT are centrist now, gay marriage is the leftist option. What is most frustrating is that the President needs simply to pass an Executive Order ending the rule as Commander in Chief much as Truman, who actively lost political support from Southerners, desegregated the military because it was the right thing to do. Similarly this is clearly not only the right thing to do from a legal and moral perspective, the US simply can no longer afford losing so many essential personnel over an issue that is completely irrelevant to their efficacy as soldiers. That is one of the main reasons so many commanders including top ones like Adm. Mullen and Gen. Petraeus are coming out in favor of this.
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p>Secondly though, I would argue that the main reason Obama is reluctant has less to do with gay rights and more to do with national security. He has seemed very reluctant to challenge his generals openly, and with some of them opposed to this, he wants to ensure he has a good relationship with the military and would rather his commanders focus on the wars than implementing this policy. I still disagree with him on this, a real leader would not differ to his subordinates, but by eventually getting the military’s green light (the generals, admirals, and SOD would not have come forward if they knew this wouldn’t happen) the policy can be implemented with the full recommendation of the military, with Republican support (one can see the Maine twins, Graham, Luger, and maybe even Brown voting with this), and look like Obama followed the military’s orders and not the other way around. It would end up being a better policy politically if that’s how it went, I fear in reality the military might double cross the President or this delay will allow opposition to it to increase much as it did with healthcare.
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p>Thirdly, I would disagree with Kos’s assertion that elections are won on the left. The selection of a right wing idealogue turned independents off to McCain, where he used to be their biggest hero. Obama meanwhile came across as pragmatic and centrist taking few liberal positions that were not already popular with most of the general electorate (reforming healthcare, stopping the war). It was crucial to his victory, and most of the new seats that made up the Democratic majority are conservative Democrats in swing districts, many of whom voted against health care.
A left wing challenge has already lost us Stupak and his district, I would hate to see intraparty warfare distract us in 10′ as it did in other elections. That said this election will be won on the President’s leadership not his ideology.
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p>So lastly, I agree that if the President passes immigration reform, banking reform, and a few other important pieces of legislation, he will look effective and government will be working. If only he pulled a Truman on DADT.
when we could lose the House in this coming election, the prospect of which becomes more likely if this bill doesn’t pass before then.
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p>As for Kos’s assertions, I think you misunderstand them. It’s not so much that elections are won on the left or right, they’re won by providing clear choices and not being afraid to stand up for who you really are. The things Kos (and I) advocate for aren’t even “leftist” policies — immagration reform, contrary to conventional wisdom fueled by rabid bigotry, is widely popular across the country. You pointed out yourself that repealing DADT is a very centrist position — with around 70% support in this country.
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p>These policies won’t cost us votes, they’ll gain us votes… that they’re widely popular to the base, absolutely core issues in some base communities, is a bonus — if they’re passed. If they’re not passed, not only do you lose votes because these things are popular, but you lose the base when it’s incredibly important that the base shows up. Don’t scoff at the importance of the base… not a single competitive democratic election will be won without them. Not only is it the base that can be the core to any campaign’s victory in the polls, but they’re also the ones who provide the volunteer base to go after other voters, outside those base communities.
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p>Stupak’s idiocy and narcisism cost him his seat — not to mention his corruption. The bill simply put did not do what Stupak tried to say it did, he just wanted to grand stand to take this country backwards by about 30-40 years. That may have been okay with you, but it wasn’t okay with the bulk of this country and it was a VERY stupid move by Stupak.
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p>That said, I’m glad we agree on just about everything. I don’t think intraparty fighting is going to be a major problem in this election cycle for the democrats — but even in the rare instance where there is a primary challenge, the focus such challenges put on democrats during the primary is often worth the price you pay in having to have 2 competitive elections in the cycle, instead of just one. See Deval Patrick, 2006.
banking yes.
than many here at BMG. I mean that very respectfully BTW
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p>I agree in principle 100% with the position that DADT needs to be repealed. I am less convinced that the president is less than committed to it.
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p>First there is the Executive Order argument. I am willing to be shown where I am wrong on this but the way I understand it DADT is an act of Congress and, as such, can only be repealed by an Act of Congress. As I understand it, racial segregation in the military was military policy. That can be undone by Executive Order while an Act of Congress cannot.
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p>The President could issue an Executive Order not to enforce DADT but that would be policy only and therefore easily undone by successive administrations. That is why I support the President’s insistence on actual repeal by Congress.
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p>On the timing and the Defense Appropriations Legislation I don’t know what he is planning this time. I do know that the last Appropriation Bill took some important steps toward eliminating wasteful spending in defense contracting. This was very hard to pass and I expect that attaching DADT to it would have jeopordized an already fragile coalition.
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p>I honestly believe that the President wants to get this done in a way that avoids conflict with the military and ensures implementation in a healthy and lasting way.
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p>All that being said, I am growing impatient as well and I fully understand and agree with the sentiment that this is something that needs to be done sooner not later and now would be a really good time.
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p>I’m not talking about the executive order argument, though, as you say, he can issue an executive order. That much is fact. Yes, that executive order can be undone next administration, though so could a law passed by congress.
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p>Furthermore, signging an executive order would be seen as strong pressure by the President to get a repeal passed. Moving on…
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p>I do. Not passing the repeal.
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p>Then he shouldn’t lie, which he is continually doing every time he says he supports repeal, including in his state of the union, when he said he supported it “this year.” That was bull shit. As we now know, only 5 days later the administration decided against repeal in a secret, closed-door meeting.
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p>Enough is enough. Either this administration can be in favor of equality, or it can be in favor of bigotry. It can no longer try to have it both ways by lying about it publicly, then undermining promises of support privately. That’s just bullshit and will no longer be tolerated. If the administration thinks it can continue to get away with it, they’ll get a real shocker when the GLBT community stays home come November.
Lets not get too testy here. My post is most certainly not misdirection. You say you were not talking about the Executive Order argument. Well that’s fair enough but jconway did and my reply appears beneath his comment not yours.
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p>I really do disagree with the argument that he should do that. An Executive Order would not repeal DADT but would most likely remove rather than add pressure on the legislature to do something more permanent.
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p>Look, we basically agree. the only difference is that I beleive that the President is telling the truth when he says he is commtted to repeal but I don’t think he is committed to immediate repeal. You think his failure thus far to follow through shows that he is not actually committed to repeal and is therefore lying.
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p>I don’t which of us is right. I hope I am and so should you. In the meantime you have the easier position to defend. he hasn’t stepped up yet and that makes him a legitimate target for criticsm and a possible revolt from the LGBT community and their supporters, including me.
justice delayed is justice denied.
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p>The President may be willing to sign a repeal to DADT, but he’s clearly not willing to push for one. You can’t “support” something if you’re not willing to push for it — the best you can do if you aren’t pushing it is accept it, should it somehow, miraculously pass. But the big, important thing here is almost nothing will pass in DC at this point without the President’s firm support.
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p>So, the President does not “support” a repeal to DADT, though he’d probably accept it if it was sent to his desk for passage, which is never going to happen unless he shifts gears and fully supports it.
You’re essentially right but I am hopeful that he is deliberately slow playing it because he thinks that is how it gets done rather than that he is less supportive than he claims.
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p>I remain more hopeful than sanguine on this point.
I wouldn’t be writing these things if I didn’t think we could apply enough pressure to get the President to change his mind. But it has to happen quickly, because if the repeal of DADT isn’t inserted into the Defense Authorization Bill, it’s as good as dead. And if it dies this year, who knows when we’ll be able to get it through, because November will be the great determining factor. If we can hold the line in our House and Senate counts, DADT not being repealed this year may not be the end of the world, but that’s a huge if that no one should feel comfortable about, especially when — as I’ve pointed out — failure to pass this repeal will actually hurt our chances in November, quite possibly by a lot more than most would think.
is a really good point.
…since I don’t push for casinos you won’t accuse me of supporting them, right?:)
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p>Maybe he wants GOP support and is using reverse psycology, since it seems the surefire way to get them to oppose something these days is to announce his support:)
I thought the President, etc. had order the non-enforcement of DADT. Did I get this wrong?
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p>Don’t underestimate Obama tempermental (as opposed to ideological) conservatism. He’s tight-fisted with his political capital and not particularly in favor of change that appears radical. HCR was radical, but not really in a leftist way.
you got it wrong.
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p>There was a change made to the implementation of the policy, but only a change insofar as it really made the policy “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” — the witch hunts are supposed to be over. Many of the 13,000+ people who have been dismissed under DADT neither told nor were even asked, investigations just began, often based on anonymous tattlers with a grudge. Now, any testimony given against a service member has to be under oath and the military isn’t supposed to go investigating just because… Better, but still terrible and still something that’s going to lead to hundreds of courageous American heroes being discharged from the military every year because they’re gay, and thousands of others forced to live in constant fear of being outed.
Card check; immigration reform; repeal of DADT; financial reform, getting the unemployed to work…and we have a 7 months before the elections. I’m not aware of anyone advocating Obama take on all these issues between now and November. After health care Obama has picked financial reform (as mediocre as it is) and hopefully that will be done this spring. So he has at most one more issue to push by the Fall. So most issues will have to wait and determining which is pushed won’t be done on merit, because they all have merit, they will be done for political reasons. Which issue will help them stem the loses in November and hopefully prevent a Republican take over in the house.
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p>Yes, both immigration reform and DADT are base issues that will impact the motivation of proven Democratic voters. But is pushed, which one will have the biggest push back, in which the right-wing distortion machine will sway independents way from Dems (or motivate the right-wing spotty voter). My guess is immigration reform will have more push back that repeal of DADT.
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p>But there is another calculus: is there an issue within the left agenda that would generate more independent support, that would not create a backlash from the right (which negates a left-base vote) that would result in more net votes in November, than a base-oriented of repealing DADT. Without a bit of polling data, I’m guessing JOBS fits that bill. The issue that will get us the most votes in November–and results in keeping a Democratic Congress that will continue a left leaning agenda–is jobs. On merit, all these issues need to be passed. But Jobs gives us the most political lift and that should be the focus after financial reform (which will give us political lift also).
as others have indicated, he could end DADT at anytime during his administration with the stroke of a pen. And I reject the idea that we can only pass two important bills between now and November. That’s absurd.
…it’s absurd to think we can to think we can get Financial Reform and another major issue off the table. Based on the last 16 months, even that is aggressive.
Since you seem to think a jobs bill is so important and desired by the public, what about the jobs of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the military? Do they count, too? More than 13,000 people have been “fired” by the military for being gay. That’s a lot of unemployed people.
…13,000 lost jobs is about .0003 of the employment rolls. But I’m not in favor of framing DADT in the jobs context.
You can put that into any sort of statistic you’d like, but if you do, you’re dehumanizing the 13,000 individuals involved, who’ve bled for this country and put everything on the line.