Obama’s Evolution, Romney’s Devolution

The Boston Globe

May 11, 2012|Joshua Green

Opinion | Joshua Green

On Wednesday, after years of claiming that his view was “evolving,” President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. Oddly, the catalyst for that decision was probably his opponent for the presidency, Mitt Romney. Social issues weren’t expected to intrude on a campaign supposed to be all about the economy. But last week, Romney’s openly gay foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell, resigned, implying that social conservatives had driven him out of the job, which thrust the issue into the campaign and led to Vice President Joe Biden’s saying on “Meet the Press” that he supported same-sex marriage.

At that point, Obama’s fate was sealed. Maintaining his opposition to marriage equality would only have exacerbated an awkward divide on an issue of mounting importance to his party.

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Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues

The Daily Beast
Andrew Sullivan
12 May 2012 01:03 PM
[Re-posted from last night.]

Below is a remarkable document. It’s a memo circulated by Jan van Lohuizen, a highly respected Republican pollster, (he polled for George W. Bush in 2004), to various leading Republican operatives, candidates and insiders. It’s on the fast-shifting poll data on marriage equality and gay rights in general, and how that should affect Republican policy and language. And the pollster’s conclusion is clear: if the GOP keeps up its current rhetoric and positions on gays and lesbians, it is in danger of marginalizing itself to irrelevance or worse.

Read the bluntness of this. This is the GOP establishment talking to itself. And the Republican pollster who arguably knows more about the politics of the gay issue than anyone else (how else to explain the Ohio campaign of 2004?) is advising them in no uncertain terms that they need to evolve and fast, if they’re not going to damage their brand for an entire generation:

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Obama Backs Gay Marriage

Huff Post

Sam Stein

Posted: 05/09/2012 2:55 pm Updated: 05/09/2012 7:34 pm

WASHINGTON — In a nod to a dramatic shift in public opinion, Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting president to announce his support for same-sex marriage.

In a sit-down interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a markedly long and oft-mocked evolution on the matter.

“I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Obama told Roberts, in an interview that will air in full on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

(Watch ABC’s entire clip below)

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.

The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president’s behalf, as well as a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for several years. With the issue back in the news this week, the pressure intensified.

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Republican House Speaker John Boehner quits debt talks

BBC, 23 July 2011

• Obama: It’s hard to understand Watch
• Boehner: White House like Jell-O Watch

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has walked away from crunch debt ceiling talks at the White House with US President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said Mr Boehner had rejected an “extraordinarily fair deal” that would have included $650bn (£400bn) of cuts to entitlement programmes.

The president said he had been willing to take “a lot of heat” from his party.

Mr Boehner told a news conference afterwards that Mr Obama had “moved the goal posts” by demanding a tax hike.

President Obama said he wanted a meeting with congressional leaders, including Mr Boehner, at the White House at 1100 (1500 GMT) on Saturday.

More here…

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Ken Cuccinelli Drops Law Firm King & Spalding For Its ‘Obsequious Act Of Weakness’ On DOMA

Ken Cuccinelli Drops Law Firm King & Spalding For Its ‘Obsequious Act Of Weakness’ On DOMA

Amanda Terkel- HuffPost

Posted: 04/29/11 10:39 AM ET

WASHINGTON — Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) is terminating his office’s relationship with law firm King & Spalding after the firm decided to drop its defense of the controversial Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) last week.

“King & Spalding’s willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives,” Cuccinelli wrote to firm partner Joseph Lynch in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

King & Spalding Communications Director Les Zuke told The Huffington Post that the firm does not comment on client representations. An inquiry to Cuccinelli’s office was not immediately returned.

On Monday, King & Spalding announced that it was filing a motion to withdraw its representation of DOMA, saying that “the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate.”

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