Has Obama done enough for gay rights?

Manic Moran

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

Yes, and if you look at the breakdown it was the older black vote, so it was generational, not racial.
There are one or two black gay people too, or so I've heard.

The Latino vote didn't help much either.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force put out an analysis focusing particularly on the black vote. Complete with mind-numbing statistical formulae which I can't remember from university.

http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/issues/egan_sherrill_prop8_1_6_09.pdf

The State-wide figures do match the assessment that the older people were, the more likely they were to vote in favour of the assessment, but they believe that when they drill down to the black vote, it was in fact religion which was the major defining factor.

As shown in Figure 4, African Americans are more religious (as measured by frequency of attendance at religious services) than any other racial or ethnic group of California voters. As a whole, 43 percent of Californians attend religious services at least once per week. The share of African Americans attending services with this frequency is much higher: 57 percent. This difference in frequency of attendance between African
Americans and the rest of the population is statistically significant.

As shown in Figure 5, controlling for frequency of religious attendance helps explain why African Americans supported Proposition 8 at higher levels than the population as a whole. Among Californians who attend worship at least weekly, support for Proposition 8 was nearly uniform across all racial and ethnic groups. Among those who attend worship less than weekly, majorities of every racial and ethnic group voted “no” on Proposition 8. The differences that remain among groups are not statistically significant at the 95% level of confidence.

On the plus side, you are correct that as the older people die off, that reduces the amount of people who were in favour of Prop 8. On the other hand, whites are a minority in California now, and the current trends see that decrease continuing, with the accompanying increase in the more religious black, Latino and Asian populations which may counter-act that.

It should be added that I'm somewhat surprised by the figure that 43% of Californians attend weekly church. I would be very curious to see the figures for UK or Ireland.

NTM

BlueLepreachaun

Black people vote republican?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

...as Chris Rock said a few years ago "all the black people that voted for Bush are in the Cabinet"

...oh god thats ****ing hillarious.
Obama got around 90% of the black vote in 2008.
They are not gonna vote republican, against the first black president, and throw every economic issue they care about overboard, just because gays can say "yeh man I'm gay" to their buddys in the millitary.

kev9100 wrote: »

He may, however he might gain some votes in other demographics as well. Plus sometimes you just have to forget about politics and do what`s right.

The problem is hes surrounded himself with a lot of people, like his cheif of staff, who only care about politics.

..but your right, progressive voters don't blindly vote democrat no matter what, while it's true the US doens't have a multiparty system like us (despite supposidly being the "greatest democracy on earth"...) dissapointed progressive voters tend to just stay home if they are pissed off.

But even though Obama has been very careful about not taking any bold policy stances and has been overly concerned with his (already doomed) re-election, hes not very good at politics, and neither are the demoratic party. They assume that if they are low in the polls on an issue they should run to the right.
In one of the Goverors races, Virginia, this year the democratic gov that was up for re-election saw his polls slipping sharply and so ran to the right even saying he'd opt out of major parts of Obamas already grossly watered down healthcare plan, he still lost, because 1.2 million progressive voters that had come out for Obama stayed home, and a poll done after the election showed that most thought the gov running for reeelection was too conservative.

Manic Moran

Black people vote republican?

I don't believe he made that suggestion.

They don't need to cross party lines in order for Obama to lose their support. As you point out yourself, all they need to do is just stay home.

NTM

BlueLepreachaun

Oh a huge chunk of the new voters who came out in 08 wont be there in 2012 to re-elect him, but thats because he turned out to be a dull as dishwater centrist with no spine.
Gays in the millitary are just not that big a politicial issue for anyone other than the usual suspects.

A Gallup poll this summer found:

• 69% in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military
• 58% of conservatives
• 86% of liberals
• 77% of moderates

The only people who oppose this are the aged millitary brass that don't want the hassle of dealing with the transition, religous funadmentalists, politicians who like to use culture wars to distract the US working and middle class from their economic situation and some socially conservative troops who are already major closet cases (doing shots out of each others asses as in Iraq for example) and don't want to admit it.

kev9100

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

.


But even though Obama has been very careful about not taking any bold policy stances and has been overly concerned with his (already doomed) re-election, hes not very good at politics, and neither are the demoratic party.

Ah come on, its way too early to say his re-election is doomed. His numbers are still around 54/55 and the republicans have NO ONE electable. In 2010 however, the dems will take a hit.

dave2pvd

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

But even though Obama has been very careful about not taking any bold policy stances and has been overly concerned with his (already doomed) re-election, hes not very good at politics, and neither are the demoratic party.

With such bold statements, I just can't figure out if you are:

A) A highly respected professor of politics. Harvard? Yale?

or

16

BlueLepreachaun

dave2pvd wrote: »

With such bold statements, I just can't figure out if you are:

A) A highly respected professor of politics. Harvard? Yale?

or

16

1. He sacrificed 40% of his stimulas bill to ineffective tax cuts rather than actual stimulas spending just to get the vote of one republican senator that he didn't even need.

2. He watered down his health bill to get the vote of that same republican senator in a comittie that had a massive democratic majority.

3. He named a senator who said Obama wanted death panels as one of the people on the right who was "genuinly trying to find soloutions"

4. In his healthcare debate instead of using the very very basic negotiating tactic of asking first for more than you think you can get (single payer) he started with the compromise (a public option), then compromised on the compromise (public option only open to those without insurance), then compromised on the compromise of the compromise (public option with a state by state opt out clause)....all of this to get senate votes he did not need since he could have used the senate reconciliation rule to prevent a fillabuster by republicans or conservative democrats.

5. He allowed a democratic senator who campaigned against him to get the powerful Homeland Security committie chairmanship, and allowed him to keep it despite that same senator threatening to fillabuster the centrepeice of his domestic agenda, his health reform bill.

He is a terrible politician, good campaigner does not equal a good poltiical leader when you actually get the job.

kev9100 wrote: »

Ah come on, its way too early to say his re-election is doomed. His numbers are still around 54/55 and the republicans have NO ONE electable. In 2010 however, the dems will take a hit.

When you combine progressive and independent voter apathy with a continued bad economy what do you get in 2012? President Romney!

I'm not saying a crazy like Palin would be elected, she'd not even get the nomination for that very reason.