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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.
Palin Church Promotes Converting Gays
http://www.kron.com/Global/story.asp?S=8961997
As a correction to the poster who invoked Godwin’s Law earlier, here is the actual text of Godwin’s Law:
“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
That’s all. Not “the poster’s point is meaningless” or “the thread has outlived its usefulness” or any of that. Just that the Nazis had such a negative impact on our culture that sooner or later, someone is bound to bring them up.
The more you know.
Kari,
As you are an economist (and let’s concede different economists can have different opinions as can different medical doctors have different medical opinions),do you think US Presidents have any responsibility for the state of the US economy.
I remember when Reagan was President, all I hear from my Republican friends was that he was responsible for the great state of the US economy due to the implementation of his economic policies.
Flash forward 4 years afther Bush 1’s first failed term. Then I heard these same Republican friends say that Clinton was lucky when he was President. His economic policies had nothing to do with the great state of the US economy. It was all luck and timing.
Flash forward to the current Administration. Most people I know feel the ecomony is tanking. I new hear Republicans say one of 2 things: 1) the economy is sound and most Americans are just winers and complainers or 2) GW is not responsible for the state of the economy, it is just his bad luck to be president at this time.
I hate the hipocracy, as Republicans want to have it both ways: take credit for the good times and deflect criticism for the bad times.
So again my question: Do you think the US President has any power or control over the state and direction of the US economy?
Bernanke is indeed a Republican. Look it up on the Internet.
Kari- You’re so misinformed. Bernanke is and always has been a Republican. You’re sources are wrong.
John: Just in case you didn’t know, Bernanke is a Democrat.
I know that real people are hurting–I freely state that. But there are always people suffering and in spite of many years of noble research ther hasn’t really been any particularly good ways developed to address that social problem.
The suffering of certain groups of people in an economy is not indicative of a bad economy overall.
There may be a bad economy overall, I wouldn’t even necessarily say I like the economy as it is at the moment, because I don’t. However, you’re arguing the state of the economy at large with the suggestion that the situation in one sector causes it. I’m sorry, but that is the fallacy of composition at work and therefore does not follow.
Keri,
As recently as August 23, 2008, our Republican appointed Fed Chairman, as referenced in the LA Times said:
“…what really worries the Federal Reserve is the weak economy, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Friday.”
He did hot say “healthy economy,” or “good economy,” or even “fair economy. ” He said “poor economy.”
Despite your assertions, the US economy is not healthy at present. I heard on NPR today, that almost 10% of homeowners are either late in making their mortgage payments or in foreclosure.
That is not indicative of a healthy economy.
I suggest you take your head out of the sand and see that real people are hurting. Unemployment is high, bankruptcies are high, foreclosures are at historic levels, inflation is getting worse, money is difficult to borrow, and people are in fear of losing their jobs.
That, by my definition, even though I am not an economist, is not a healthy economy.
Perhaps we should find a more fitting name for the LCR. Something like Benedict Arnold Republicans because they are certainly traitors to the SCC Community, or perhaps Jane Fonda Republicans for giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Something to think about.
But, Kari, the Hitler/Nazi/Fascist analogies serve so very well these days. We don’t live in a history-free zone. Just because we don’t have beer gardens where little boys singing and the passing out of propagandists’ pamphlets which linked wistfulness for the-greatness-that-went-before with Nazi concern for the country’s future welfare does not mean have no similarities of manipulation today.
No one who lived in pre-war Germany or has personal knowledge of it saw the police in action in both of the convention’s cities and was not reminded of the brown-shirted thugs who owned the law and the streets.
Well, others surely could make more and better historical references and linkages.
Meanwhile, Kari, as a child of two families who walked out of Europe, and since you feel free to admonish and belittle those who use reasonable short-hand references to make deeper points, I just want to say scr@% you and the unicorn you rode in on.
You won’t be finding intelligent posts from Trace or Kari – but, they are at least entertaining in their pseudo-intellectulized ignorance.
John: ‘Most major economists’?
Who are these ‘major economists’ that believe thus? A recession is defined pretty consistently and straightforwardly as two consecutive periods of negative economic growth. We typically use quarter-years as the time period.
We have not, either in Q1 or Q2 of this year, experienced negative economic growth according to data collected by reputable economics organizations. We can say thus, unambiguously, that the country is not in a recession by the definition of the term.
Ronald Reagan once remarked that he felt that a recession should not be defined in terms of economists but in terms of human suffering amd I think that a lot of people connected to that in much the same way they’re connecting to Obama now.
Nonetheless, ‘human suffering’ is entirely subjective and probably not quantifiable, so a scientist would have to use something objective, like GDP growth. So far, that number has been hovering between zero and one percent growth, so it is actually positive, even if the number is not particularly large.
I’m not saying that people aren’t suffering as the result of high oil prices and many other consumer goods, which are connected to oil–I know that I and most of the people I know are feeling it too. But that doesn’t mean the country at large is in a recession.
The personal financial experiences of one or a group of individuals in an economy do not necessary indicate how the economy, when viewed at the large scale, is doing. (This is, incidentally, why a lot of Classical thinking with regards to macroeconomics is flawed, but that’s a tangent we needn’t go into.)
The whole production is a big bunch of b.s., designed to keep the few meager votes of the tragic GLBT people who would be so ignorant to vote for a person and party that treats them like sh*t. The LCR’s take any tiny-itsy-bitty tidbit they can get and blow it up as if it were some BIG thing. A bunch of self-hating gays. Very sad.
Does anyone have a script of the discussion? I don’t understand the phrase “Keep fighting for what you believe, because the day is going to come,”. What could Arlen Specter possible add to the conversation. Please elaborate on this story, rather than simply criticizing the event, so that we may all make our own decisions on it’s value.
Countless times I have read that the Log Cabin Republicans believe the Republican party is more fiscally conservative than the Democratic party. This is the major reason for their support, and that the “socially conservative” stance about gays and lesbians was a minor concern in their political decisions.
I can’t imagine the mental contortions necessary to continue either such a delusion or to deflect such weighted disregard and distaste from the Republicans. I can only think that, for some, the accumulated betrayals and woundings are too heavy to crawl out from under.
I want to believe, too; I think we all want to believe. It is better than despair.
I am a liberal Democrat, wary of my party’s understanding and sense of justice towards us. I did not get to wary in a vacuum. However, before actions come ideas and words; the Democrats are at least reaching for the words. It is not enough, but it is more than the intractable Republicans have ever offered, even before that party sold it’s political soul to the pond scum that runs it.
Kari,
Where did you get your degree, the neighborhood night school? The economy is not doing well and everyone who is working and paying bills understands this. Unlike you, most major noted economists think the US is in a recession and that our economy will get worse as the year progresses.
The morgage crisis, precipitated directly by Bush reducing the budget for mortgage regulation oversight, is one of the major factors why people are losing their homes and jobs, and the economy is tanking.
Also the 10 billion we are spending on Iraq, that we could have spent at home on building better roads, and preserving clean water supplies, would have created thousands of jobs abd stimulated the economy.
You have just lost all credibility with reasonable people.
What could have been a nice addition to these posts, turned out to be someone who really does not understand the economy, or macroeconimics, at all.