The GLBT blogosphere made a lot of noise and the legacy media picked up on the story. The big impact now is coming from the national straight progressive bloggers. I noted kos’ post earlier today. He and others have much more today.
Here is Matt Stoller using this as an opportunity to give an explanation for the overall deflating Obama campaign, which has failed at this point to live up to the hype:
Obama is just an ambitious politician trying to win a few more votes, and he’s certainly gay friendly in his legislative record. But it says something about why a non-movement campaign just cannot beat brand Democrat. It’s not about positions and it never has been about positions, it’s about constituencies and identity, and prioritizing your values. There are many ‘liberals’ in Congress who give money to Bush Dog freshmen and pretend their voting record should excuse them for this. That’s just not the way this works, and the logical culmination is the McLurkin situation, where a campaign is caught between a rock and a hard place. And it’s not an accident, it’s a choice. Obama chose to be where he is by his decision to keep the progressive movement at arms length.
I’ve spoken to a bunch of people around the country who tell me that the air in the Obama world has leaked out in the past month for two specific reasons. Activists and liberals don’t think Obama can beat Clinton, but they also no longer see a reason to care. My position has always been that Obama could win if he runs a progressive campaign, but he’s just not a progressive. Clinton is brand Democrat who has faced the right-wing smear machine, and she knows just how awful they are. Her strategy will be bad for the general since she is centrist and represents the status quo. In a primary or the general, though, you can’t beat something with nothing, and Clinton is at least something.
The decision was made to go with African-Americans over the gays, something I pointed out a while ago. Now he is feeling the impact. While I am sure the crowd went away happy, there is a big wide word of the online progressives that this has reached. Arguably that is more important.
And here is digby: (much more below the fold)
I’m sure Obama is listening to his advisors tell him that he has to win South Carolina or it’s over. And apparently South Carolina is a stew of bigotry and resentment, the place where the dirty tricksters pull out all the stops to win. This kind of thing is perfectly in keeping with that sort of strategy. But as I said before, it’s a mistake, particularly for the man whose rationale for running is a desire to heal the nation’s political and philosophical wounds.
This is also one of the dangers of trying to run a “unity” campaign at a time when the right has become so extreme that “reaching out” to them often means legitimizing bigots, xenophobes and warmongers. It’s possible to do it, but it takes a very deft diplomatic hand and an unusual ability to communicate well with all concerned without giving up your principles. That’s exactly what was supposed to be Obama’s strong suit. This error is hardly reassuring.
He can’t actually run a unity campaign without wading into the nasty waters of the bigots and xenophobes and publically confronting them. That is impossible to do in a presidential election race (see earlier post).
If Obama was really committed to setting things right with LGBT folks, he would’ve told McClurkin to STFU and not make things any worse rather than letting him run his mouth. Are we to believe the guy was totally off the reservation, and acting in direct contradiction to the wishes of the campaign?
Obama’s message of hope and bipartisanship stays positive by letting proxies do his dirty work for him.
I am less of a conspiracy theorist, then again I tend to trust that folks are speaking in good faith. Obama’s folks are insisting that they told him to STFU, but he ignored their wishes. That said, it is not like Obama took to the stage right afterwards to denounce what McClurkin said, or bring the gay preacher up to the stage to do the same. He gave McClurkin a platform to spread hate and then did not challenge him on it.
And finally here is kos’s new piece:
Obama and his campaign have had a bad week. The worst I have seen from any candidate this presidential cycle. A candidate whose entire rationale for running was to elevate the discourse, unite our country, and end the politics of division has just been exposed as cynical and clueless, embracing some of the worst hatred and divisiveness in our society today.
That is just brutal. Obama has been absolutely hammered today by the straights. In one respect, it is wonderful to see them all rallying around the gays, not that I ever doubted that they would. However, I am extremely disappointed by Obama’s behavior. I expect more from him. I don’t need my politicians to be perfect, but I don’t want to have someone side with homophobes over me.
