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Five Quick-Hit Thoughts On Obama’s Marriage Flip-Flop

By: qsclues (Diary)  |  May 9th, 2012 at 05:52 PM  | 

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Today, President Obama announced that his position has “evolved” (if it was Romney, it would have been called a “flip-flop”, but I digress) on same-sex marriage.  Let me put my amateur political analyst hat on and make five quick observations:

1)  I am *very* skeptical that Obama has actually changed his mind on this in any way, shape or form.  Either this is what he felt all along, but didn’t think it would help him to say it, or he is still against it but felt this change would help him politically.

2)  I highly doubt that this is going to have any real impact on the electorate one way or another.  If you are someone who views Obama’s stance on same-sex marriage as being more relevant to your life than, say, anything else Obama has done in the last 3.5 years, then let’s just say that you are in a very small demographic.

3)  This is the key one:  Obama just moved to the left on an issue six months before the election.  Why would he feel the need to do this?  Perhaps he felt the need to “shore up his base”?  If he actually feels that he has to do that at this point, he’s in heap-big doo-doo.

4)  If he was going to choose an issue to move to the left on, this wouldn’t seem to be the most sensible choice, given the way North Carolina voted last night, and the way that almost every state has voted for the last several years.  It’s certainly not going to help with independents, which only reinforces thought #3.  But then again…

5)  …what other issue can he move more to the left on?  If he thinks that this will satisfy his base when everything else he’s done hasn’t worked, well, then see the end of point #3.

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  • qsclues

    My line of thinking on number 2 mostly boils down to this: True liberals were already voting for him. True conservatives were already voting against him. And I believe that the general opinion of most of those one the fence will boil down to the age-old axiom, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

    That said, what few people are swayed by this are more likely to move away from him as opposed to toward him, which was basically point 4.

  • ken58

    He’s more worked up over supporting “gay marriage,” something of little to no concern to 99% of the population by of huge importance to wealthy gay elites who’ll give him money for his campaign.

  • naraht

    1)Parties always want their conventions to be coronations which means as little on the floor ugliness as possible. There was a good chance that the issue of whether the democratic party was going to support gay marriage as a plank in the party platform was going to reach the floor and disrupt the “coronation”.

    2)Completing his Evolution in May means that it will be out of the news (but certainly not out of the campaign commercials) in a couple of weeks. The only question left on the subject in the election is whether Mitt (and his VP choice) support Civil Unions. (In fact arguably Chris Christie’s position on wanting a referendum may now be viewed as too Liberal)

    3)For those where supporting gay marriage more important than anything else he has done (or been) over the last 3.5 years probably equals some members of the the Log Cabin Republicans and in the other direction maybe some of the conservative union members in states like Ohio and Wisconsin.

    Oddly enough I created an election map based on whether the state has put a ban on gay marriage in the constitution *and* there is no recognition at all for gay couples. This among others gives Michigan and Ohio to Romney and West VA, Indiana and Wyoming(!) to Obama. The “swing state” here is Wisconsin which bans Gay Marriage and anything like it in the constitution but has a limited Domestic Partner Registry law. I chose to give that to Obama, giving enough for the win.Give Wisconsin to Romney and Romney wins on that map.

  • trimulchio

    to most people to move left on to secure his base. His own base favors it and anyone who opposses it probably isn’t going to vote for him. (EXCEPT, among African Americans . . . .)

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Obama already had the GLBT support thanks to his other policies, and his tiff with the catholic church and egregiously pro-abortion policies makes him anathema to the social conservatives.

    I agree with #1, this ‘evolution’ is not real, but political theatre, and the unforced error is the timing. Obama must have preferred to keep ambiguity alive for a time, but whether it was the convention, the DNC platform, donors or Biden’s big mouth, he felt he needed to ‘come out’.

    Doing it now and not in 12 months puts his standing with many independents at risk. Dont believe the polling on this, real voters have voted much more against it than polls show.

    Obama has now doubled down on liberalism – ‘war on women’ pro-abortion; ‘occupy’ attacks on 1%; gay equality vs traditional family values. What’s left? Doubling down on environmental extremism?

    Obama is running an anti-1996 campaign, go left to stir up the base. Will it work? Doubtful.

  • theobnoxiousamerican

    This could easily have consequences in the election – this is a purely political move, as with anything Obama. As such, he’s hoping his supporters (the media) will use this issue to pile on to Romney. Next, they will say Romney is extreme on his views of Gay Marriage. Most people are sheep (the majority elected Obama after all) and could very easily fall for it.

    Otherwise, well written piece.

  • exitsfunnel

    I think that this announcement was obviously political but not quite in the sense you suggest. I think that he would have been more than happy to just ignore the issue (which is a dicey one) between now and the election. The problem was that he just looked so wishy-washy and like he was dodigng the issue (because he was), that his hand was kind of forced. He really had no choice but to come out on one side or the other and politically he probably couldn’t double down on being against at this point.

    As someone who is not bothered by same sex marriage but cares a lot more about our $16T national debt, my only fear, is that this is going to turn into the gay marriage election. Ugh.

    -exits

  • garfieldjl

    Assuming Romney doesn’t try to be on all sides of the issue or veer left, this could cost Obama the election.

    The majority of Hispanic Americans are Catholics, this would be something that will royally tick them off, coupled with the other attacks on Christianity by the Obama administration, this puts a damper on Dems getting Hispanics to vote for them.

    African Americans are also pro-traditional marriage, so this may cost him a major part of Obama’s support.

  • APA Guy

    There is one shiny strategic reason this election will not shape up like 1996 did: Obama is NOT Clinton.

    Clinton knew precisely which issues mattered to voters and how to frame them. He also knew that you mail in the South when you support gay marriage.

    Obama has made a terrible political blunder using this issue to try to distract from his awful performance on all matters related to the economy. He just gift-wrapped NC, OH, and perhaps VA with this announcement. He has already lost IN and is on the verge of losing FL they way things are rolling right now.

  • exitsfunnel

    I don’t think that he wanted this fight at all which was the point that I was trying to make. But he’s looked really slippery over the last ten days and the questions weren’t going away. He was pretty much forced to take a stand, especially since attacking Romney as a flip-flopper we’ll a focus of their campaign.

    In terms of how this affects him in NC, OH, and VA I think that it’s an open question. (though I don’t think that NC is in play for him in any event)

    -exits

  • APA Guy

    And I think he DID want to make it an issue. He’s looking for anything that takes the place of the economy in this election.

    Obama is racing to the left…Romney to the right. This bodes well for the GOP AND conservatism come November.

  • zachv

    An FYI, I guess. Support for gay marriage is increasing rather quickly and looking back to 2004 isn’t going to predict the future very well.

    Equality groups in Ohio began on Saturday (May 5th, 2012) the process of collecting signatures to repeal the state