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Loading ...McCain adviser meets gay Republicans
09.04.2008 11:57pm EDT
(Minneapolis, Minnesota) The McCain campaign’s senior adviser Steve Schmidt met with Log Cabin Republicans Thursday, a day after the gay GOP group endorsed John McCain for president.
“I want to pay my respects to your organization on behalf of the campaign. Your organization is an important one in the fabric of our party,” Schmidt told the organization at a lunch in Minneapolis hosted by Log Cabin to honor openly gay convention delegates.Schmidt has served as day-to-day campaign manager since early July.
“Keep fighting for what you believe, because the day is going to come,” Schmidt told the group.
“The Campaign’s efforts to reach out to Log Cabin members are reflective of Sen. McCain’s inclusive record and indicative of the type of campaign he is running,” said Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon. “Log Cabin is proud to support Senator McCain in this important election.”
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter also spoke at the event.
Log Cabin’s endorsement of McCain was not unexpected, but prompted a rebuke from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT rights organization.
“[McCain] actively campaigned for a constitutional amendment that would have banned marriage and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples in his home state of Arizona,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese.
“He went so far as to appear in television commercials for that campaign, is now supporting an amendment to strip marriage equality from California couples and has said that he would vote for a federal marriage amendment if laws already banning marriage equality were to be struck down by federal courts,” Solmonese said.
Log Cabin Republicans endorsed then-Governor George W. Bush in 2000, but declined to endorse President Bush in 2004—largely over the president’s push for a federal anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment and his decision to use gay people as a wedge issue in winning re-election.
How a gay person can support the Republican Party is impossible for me to understand. It is like Hitler being in charge of the social service department of the concentration camps!
Marriage equality is just as important as the other issues on the table for they are basic human rights people should be afforded.
One way to boost the economy is to let us marry. It would bring millions of dollars into the wedding industry and would be one boost this economy would need.
The economy is important, and Obama is the best choice in order to fix this mess we are in. We were in recession when Bush I took office, we got back into prosperity when Clinton was in charge. We lost our with with Bush II, but hopefully now we all have seen the light and will vote Obama into office.
Read the economic plan that McCain has and compare it to Obama. Speeches are nice, but they can sometimes be misleading (especially Palin’s speech).
One more thing, when Palin and the rest were bashing on community organizers, just remember that Jesus Christ was a community organizer, and Pontius Pilate was a governor.
Hypocritical Republicans caught in their own BS:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card
I Am a RR, a recovering Republican. The GOP can not be trusted to stand up for any the libertarian beliefs of Barry Goldwater or Reagan. The religious right has captured the party and will destroy it before allowing freedom to be a cornerstone of the party ever again. McCain is a fool.
Josh Elder – Obama may be anti-marriage, but he is pro-equalty and pro-family. Still clearly beats McCain and his VP nom, who is noteably worse than Bush.
How nice for the Logs. They got the little pat on the head that they crave. Too bad they didn’t get a positive commitment from the McCain campaign on one single gay-rights issue.
Okay, so why didn’t McCain speak to the LCRs himself? And, was this visit by his senior advisor made public, or was it “hush-hush”? Did McCain mention gays and lesbians (in a positive manner) in his convention speech?
For those – like Josh – who say Obama is against same-sex marriage, Obama supports full equality (do your research). Who cares if he wants to leave the term marriage out of it to bridge the gap with the 50%+ that need some more education on the matter. I know as a gay husband and father of 2 beautiful girls, what is important to me is that I have the missing 1200 federal rights, including social security benefits and equal taxation – if they want to call my marriage something else but give me the rights – FINE because in 10 years no one will think twice about it whether you call it civil union, marriage, or the coallition of butt f*ckers – Obama supports our equality – McCain clearly DOES NOT!!!!! Get over yourselves already.
I find it incredibly offensive that Mccain would not find the time to speak with anyone from the log cabin republicans when he found the time to speak with extremely right winged prolife advocates such as Frank Pavone. There is no message of “unity” here, there is the same old republican rhetoric of “my way or the highway”. The only reason mccain’s advisor met with them is so that the few disillusioned LCR’s vote for Mccain and so that the issue didnt become more public than it did. By having a represenative meet with them Mccain can say “hey we are trying to listen” but still cowtow to the religious right by saying “whatever they have say isnt important enough for *ME* to listen”.
I sympathize with the Log Cabin Republicans, I really do. They desperately want to believe that they belong to the party of Lincoln, and if they did that would be great. I think we would all be Republicans if that were the case. But the fact is that the Republican Party today has strayed far from those Log Cabin days, and is now the party that actively works to perpetuate discrimination against gays and lesbians, that exploits homophobia for its own selfish ends, and that takes every opportunity to deny us our civil rights. The Log Cabin Republicans need a wake up call. To be a republican today is to be complicit in the very discrimination that harms us.
I believe that in relationships there are deal-breakers. For me, the Republican Party’s position on human rights for the GLBT community is a deal breaker. Until there is evidence that position has changed, I believe that the GLBT community should withhold its support for the GOP.
Hi Kari,
Glad to know you are an economist. I’m not but am pretty good with logic. Point being, had Georege W. had a national initiative to invest in electric cars and clean and unlimited wind and solar energy over the last 8 years, rather than spending 10 billion a month in a failed invasion of Iraq, our dependency on foreign oil would be less, US demand would be less, and prices would be less. Less demand = lower cost, right?
In any event, I am voting for Obama because he sees us as real people, includes us in his policies, and has a vision for equality that embraces us.
When you and your partner are 65 years old, do you want a national policy in place that recognizes your relationship in awarding Social Security benefits. That could happen under an Obama administration by repealing DOMA. It will never happen under a McCain administration.
Again, this is both an economic reason to vote for Obama, and also an equalty reason – to have our relationships be treated equally with straight people. That is all we are asking, to be treated equally with dignity and respect. Quite simply, Obama understands this and McCain – even though a decent man – does not.
I do not understand how on earth the Log Cabin Republicans could vote for any GOP ticket in the past 20 years… much less endorse a ticket with Palin. Would anyone care to list any LGBT issues these people support?
BTW… earlier this year:
“Another student asked McCain what he would do on “LGBT” issues and on “workers’ rights?”
McCain, paused, confused by the question. Someone in the crowd shouted out “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.” “I had not heard that phrase before,” McCain said of LGBT. (It’s a mark of the different planets the candidates from the two parties live on that McCain said this. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have long lists of “LGBT” supporters they’ve sent to reporters across the country).”
As difficult as it is… we should forgive the LCR, for they know not what they do.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2008
I’m really glad that Kari entered that post about economics. I always thought that Bill Clinton’s claim to have “generated prosperity” to be pretty lame…he just happened to run for office when the economy dipped down (helping him to get elected…remember how “unbeatable” HW Bush’s poll numbers were just after the first Gulf war and just before the dip in the economy?) and he just happened to be in office when an overly inflated .com industry took off based on lots of promises but lousy business plans (That bubble popped right in the early 00’s, just after he happened to leave office).
There are a few issues that the federal government doesn’t really have a ton of control over. Kari pointed out very eloquently that economics is one of them. Education is another (state and local governments have a LOT more effect on education, because they are the ones that actually construct the institutions and deliver the programs).
Does the federal government have a role in economics and education? Of course. However, during a presidential election, platforms and promises and speeches imply a lot more power than the federal government actually has, congress or the president.
I still can’t understand how any GLBT person could support the Republican party.
David: Same-sex marriage wouldn’t help the economy as much as you expect. Our economy is trillions of dollars in size; even if same-sex marriage had the impact of a few billion dollars, it’s still incredibly tiny compared to the size of the economy at large, making up less than one tenth of one percent.
The collapse of the dotcom bubble that existed under Clinton is hardly President Bush’s fault. It was going to happen anyway because far too much fiber was layed all over the country and when the companies that layed the fiber started having financial problems, the rest of the industry started having problems as well. Had Al Gore hypothetically won in 2000, he would have presided over the collapse of that bubble and we’d have blamed him for spending Clinton’s surplus, damaging our economy, etc. Now that was eight years ago, and we are at a different place now than we were then and you might be rightly able to attribute the events in the economy during the most recent four years to President Bush. But arguing that the weakening that happened shortly after Bush took office is Bush’s fault is just nonsensical.
I would like to note that our economy, at least in terms of recession versus recovery, is pretty healthy at the moment, as the level of economic growth is in he range one would call healthy.
The fact that the price of a particular good of great significance to the economy (oil) is quite high at the moment does not mean that the economy itself is weak.
And seriously people, can’t any of you come up with better analogies than Hitler or the Nazis? It’s old, overused and frequently hyperbole. Furthermore, it detracts from legitimate comparisons to the Nazis by decreasing the social impact of such comparisons through overuse. Be more creative when you post. Or just stop posting. Either way, stop with the Nazi comparisons.