President Barack Obama continues to be under from many in his exasperated party base for not coming out squarely in favor of gay marriage. But there may be a political method to what some Democrats consider his political madness. MSNBC’s First Read:
Women, African Americans, independents, and suburban voters have all moved more in favor of same-sex marriage just over the last two-and-a-half years, according to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll.
In the March poll, overall, Americans favored same-sex marriage by a 49-40% margin. That’s a reversal from October 2009, when it was 41% favor, 49% oppose.
Among women, there was a 14-point shift, from 44%/47% to 51%/39%. Among black voters — the largest shift — from 32%/53% to 50%/41%. (That could be attributed to the president’s warming on the issue.) Both constituencies have also moved more strongly in Obama’s favor.
And here is the hitch:
But among independents and especially suburban voters, the numbers are tighter. In March 2012, independents said they favored gay marriage by 46%/37%, a big reversal from 37%/50% in 2009.
Among suburban voters, a key electoral group, it was just a narrow plurality in favor, 45%/43%, in March. Granted, that’s a 19-point shift from 37% favor, 54% opposed. But it’s also a group Obama won in 2008 (50%-48%), which in the same March poll said it preferred Romney (49%-43%). And that’s despite Obama leading overall in the poll (51%-44%).
People still opposed, include rural voters and those identifying as Republicans.
In other words, Obama’s coalition of Democrats, black voters, women, Hispanics and urban voters (see below) are all in tact and in favor of gay marriage. But swing voters, especially suburban voters are still split — as is Obama, apparently.
Now the issue becomes whether Democrats will do what they have done in the past in their political history: decide to punish their own party by in effect not supporting it — and forgetting about teeny weenie things such as as President’s power on Supreme Court appointments (hence we have a more conservative Supreme Court), the President’s power to appoint other judges (hence a more Republican judiciary than from the New Deal’s Great Society’s heydey) etc.
And it looks like some Democrats are poised to punish their party again:
Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over President Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser’s office tells me. In some cases, I’m told, big donations are being withheld.
Jonathan Lewis, the gay philanthropist and leading Democratic fundraiser, is one of many gay advocates who has been working behind the scenes to pressure Obama to change his mind. When Obama decided against the executive order last month, arguing that he would pursue a legislative solution instead, advocates were furious — such a solution will never pass Congress, the executive order has been a priority for advocates for years, and the move smacked of a political cave to conservatives who will not support Obama no matter what he does.
Now these and other donors are beginning to withold money from Priorities USA, the main pro-Obama super PAC, out of dismay over the president’s decision. (Some of these donors have already maxed out to the Obama campaign, I’m told.) It’s the first indication that areas in which Obama is at odds with gay advocates — and in fairness, his record on gay rights has been very good — could dampen overall fundraising.
Hey, this makes sense (for Mitt Romney, the GOP and Republican hopes to have a more solidly conservative Supreme Court).
It’s THIS all over again…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.