In a pretty typical column for Kevin McCullough, he argues gay marriage is going to turn African-Americans against Kerry and Obama. Yeah. Right. Every season people argue that African-Americans are going to take Republicans more seriously and vote in fewer numbers for Democrats. And what has happened? The vote share of the African-American vote in national elections has been in the decline since Nixon. While African-Americans are quite socially conservative as a whole in public opinion polls, they vote along another axis-race issues and they vote in what they perceive as their interest.
That doesn’t mean that Republicans can’t make inroads, but it might help if the primary PAC to help minority GOP Candidates spent a about 8.9% of its funds to help them.
This blog got a whole lot more ambitious today. It’s like an encyclopedia. I particularly enjoyed the “St. Clair social register”.
Is it going to cost Obama some votes, yeah. Enough to swing the election one way or another. Unlikely.
My take on it is that most of the folks who are African-American and care that much, probably already vote Republican–that isn’t many. Like you said possibly some mariginal differences.
The gay marriage issue was the catalyst to warrant the religious Right/American Family Council to go looking for support in the Black community. Well, at least the ignorant, homophobic wing, that is.
Obama has been a long time and vocal advocate for gay rights in Springfield, and it hasn’t prevented his re-election representing a majority Black district. McCullough is desperately trying to plant land mines, while his army has already surrendered the hill.
If Blacks can forgive and help elect George Wallace, you think this issue will stand in the way of history?
I would think it would make some socialy conservative but otherwise less conservative African-Americans not vote for him.
It really depends if the pastors start speaking against gay marrage in those neighborhoods. For the most part it is not on most people’s radar, but if you start hearing about it on Sunday morning it will pop up.
OneMan
Any “good news” the Leader puts out is wishful thinking, or smokescreen, or genuine disinformation, and, as usual, dems should continue to pay no attention to this publication, but to their actual base, not to the Republican base.
BTW, the Obama signs are still up all over town, and I doubt they’re coming down until November. I know the one in my yard won’t.
If democrats started taking the stuff in the leader to heart I would worry for democracy.
It’s sort of like when I read ‘Mother Jones’
LOL–Oneman has a point. The biggest thing the Leader has done is advance the interests of a specific group of conservative Republicans. Not all conservative Republicans and certainly all Republicans take them seriously, but the Leader has made it seem they are the conservative voice.
Two things they are good at is identifying the most recent attack on who they view as compromisers and in identifying what the farthest wings of the Republican Party think is reasonable. But given Tom Cross is minority leader-the Leader is obviously not monolithic amongst Republicans.