Politician’s Politician
April 5th, 2008Does Barack Obama ignore gay media outlets?
At this point in the Democratic presidential campaign, we’re able to view the candidates by their actions. And we have found that Sen. Barack Obama would rather talk at the LGBT community than with them[…] [t]he fact is that Obama has spoken with the gay press only twice, and one of those interviews…was in 2004, before he became a U.S. senator. The other limited interview occurred after controversy erupted when his campaign added an anti-gay minister to his tour of the South. It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community.
An interesting question that rises from this editorial and its counterpart, an interview with Hillary Clinton, is, Why would Barack Obama ignore the gay community’s newspapers? What, exactly, is the benefit? Isn’t Obama all about bringing people together? How would this be accomplished by ignoring a key segment in the Democratic Party? A more cynical person might suggest that Barack Obama knows that gay people are, ah, unpopular with conservative voters and black voters (in addition to his racist, nasty reverend), and so he is attempting to be a politician by ignoring them. But that assumes that he is ignoring gay media and voters, which I am not sure is the case but this Philadelphia newspaper certainly makes a strong case.
There was a time when I thought Democrats were insane to stand by gay people despite the “damage” it does in Middle America, but if that is a principle our candidates stand by, then they should by all means stand by it, because I am not in favor of sacrificing principle for votes. Interestingly, Clinton is a well-known panderer, as her husband was — sources from Bob Kerrey to John Kerry have talked about how they care about “nothing but power” and are all about election, not principle, ever — and, again, I do not know that this is true, but I don’t doubt all the people who have argued it from both parties, so that is an interesting angle that this takes. Is Clinton’s support genuine? Can she be counted on to be firmer than her husband who, if you recall, promised to put gays into the military and then backed off on it? (Of course, the military almost rioted and forced his hand, but the premise stands: he did not keep his promise.)
Don’t kid yourself — Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both politician’s politicians.