That the sitting president would release a message — seen more than 37,000 times so far — to support one of his own party members fighting for elected office isn’t all that surprising. In fact, it’s expected. The de facto leader of the Democratic party, it’s part of President Obama’s job to ensure fellow Dems, like Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who’s running for the late Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, beat the opposition. But this video message is just one of those small reminders that the president can find time to sit down in front of a camera and read from a teleprompter to rally support around a cause he believes in (in this case, Coakley’s Senate run), but not when, say, the gays needs him the most.
You could argue that Obama is campaigning here on the federal level; that Coakley’s campaign to join the U.S. Senate is a federal matter, and he’s backing her from a federal position (the executive branch). You could also say that, given AG Coakley is suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, this is Obama actually issuing a message in tacit support of challenging the law.
And all of those things may be true. But also true is the president’s continued silence on, say, the federal Prop 8 trial Perry v. Schwarzenegger — which is, after all, a federal matter.
Brian NJ
The democratic party need more guards to hold us hostage.
me
Martha Coakley is a crusty twat. I’m sick of seeing her ugly face perched upon that column of loose skin she calls a neck and hearing her annoying voice. I’m not voting for her on principle, but I refuse to vote for Scott Brown, so I’m left with writing someone in.
dfrw
If Scott Brown wins, and it looks like he might, it’ll be worse. He’s a right-wing, anti-gay conservative dressed up to look like a moderate Republican. He isn’t.
reason
To start not voting is the same as voting for Scott Brown. I think the President is doing what he is supposed to, supporting candidates that will help get the democratic agenda passed. If he was busy kissing up to every community that wants something from him or waste his time trying to do congress job he will fail. If Coakley is defeated you can pretty much through away gay rights. Sure you can say well we taught those democrats a lesson, while stabbing ourselves in the back like we have done for decades. This is one of the first times in ages that democrats have control of the majority of the federal government; why not give them time to actually do something. In essence the republican plan is halting the federal government and picking off democrats, then they will covertly rile up the progressive base into thinking that democrats failed because they don’t care about you. Getting gays to help them out by sitting out an election were a pro-gay candidate is running fits right into their strategy. After all the party has been getting poor people to vote against there economic interest for decades, and guess what every time a republican gets elected their quality of life deteriorates. If you are a wealthy homosexual that values wealth over your own civil rights and therefore will sit out the election or vote republican power to you, if your not and will sit out the election or vote republican to teach democrats a lesson well good luck as a second class loser, if your someone that’s willing to destroy yourself just to advance hatred toward someone else I have no comment.
Lane
Fact is he needs her to hold on to 60 votes in the Senate. Without it there is no way to bypass Republicans from blocking bills.
Luxury
One has nothing to do with the other. Queerty is so lame.
There is a legitimate question in the title of this post somewhere. Too bad Queerty had to imply a phony double standard to ask it… sigh
th
Prezident Obomber doesn’t like queers. It’s that simple. He’s a two-faced lying corporate whore.
J. C.
Let’s see, we got “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (Lie and Hide)” the last time we had a Democratic President and a Democratic Controlled Congress…then, after the mid-term wipe-out of Democrats who lost control of the Congress we then got DOMA with a shitload of Democrats crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans.
So, yep, we really owe a lot to the Democrats.
Vote third party. Let’s join with other true progressives and put our OWN version of Joe (Independent) Lieberman in the Senate and in the House. After all, if a third party candidate is so weak, pointless and hopeless…then why does Joe Lieberman own the Senate? And even though Lieberman is a snake, Harry Reid and Obama have to kiss his old wrinkled saggy ass at every turn in order to get anything done — thereby, selling out the true progressives who put Obama and all of the Democrats into office, of course.
Ten percent of the House and the Senate put into the hands of unashamed and genuinely Liberal third party elected officials could be the kind of power brokering and catalyst we need to actually get things done. The two party system needs to expire. It is not true, inclusive, representative democracy. The status quo is broken beyond repair.
It’s time for a real “Change you can believe in”. Obama is a one term president. What a shame that he turned out to be just another, gutless, narcissistic, self-serving, phony.
As far as the GLBT community goes. Forget the cowardly federal legislators, our only hope lies in the courts. We still need progressives (Democrats and/or Liberal Third Party Candidates) to appoint the federal judges, so keep that in mind. But don’t let the bastards in the DNC blackmail you with that into voting for another Republican in Democratic drag like Bill Clinton and Obama.
If we can’t do better than that, then the Democratic Party need to fail until they get it right. And the GLBT community has got to let them know that they can’t always come back to our well to drink when they spit us in the face after they’ve quenched their thirst at our expense. No more Mr. Nice Gay! You don’t see the Religious Right Wackos kissing up to the Republicans, it is the other way around. Maybe that is something we need to learn from them.
dfrw
I am sorry JC, but I won’t be voting for Joe Kennedy, the Independent running for the US Senate in Massachusetts. He’s no friend to gays either. I am voting for Martha Coakley, even though she badly mis-managed her campaign because I don’t want to go backwards on gay rights. A vote for either Joe Kennedy or Scott Brown represents a vote against gays and gay rights.
Also, it was a Republican congress with a Democratic President that got us DOMA.
“The Defense of Marriage Act was authored by then Georgia Representative Bob Barr, then a Republican, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, on September 21, 1996, after moving through a legislative fast track and overwhelming approval in both houses of the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.”
reason
Joe Lieberman has power because he threatens to side with the republicans in order to make a bill more republican. That 10% that you want is already there. The democrats have far left progressives in their party that want single payer, what did they get? So what you change their label from D to I, what is that going to do? Vermont elected a third party candidate the self proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, what good did that do? None because he is powerless; what is he going to threaten to do? Will he vote with the republicans and sink health care and every other progressive item? That 10% with an (I) instead of a (D) next to their name is going to be forced to vote with the democrats 100% of the time; if they don’t, they would be supporting the Republicans idea which would mean no gay rights whatsoever. We have to work within the system that we have, not the one we wish we had. That means buckling down and supporting the party that does what is best for us, and working within that party to increase the rate of change toward equality. Democrats have a big tent party meaning that it ranges from progressive to blue dog, but it is a good thing because proximity does change minds. Look at Harold Ford, whether you like him or not, is going from blue dog to gay marriage supporter. Same thing has happened to Bill Clinton. One person at a time is how we are going to gain true equality in society.
Change does not happen over night. Ask the African Americans, they would have loved to have skipped over 200 years of slavery, ramped discrimination, and Jim Crow: African Americans stood by the parties that were working toward their
Goal, even President Lincoln took the position that they were inferior, catalyzing things getting better over time. Ask the Jews, they would have loved to skip over hundreds of years of sordid history including slavery in ancient times to the Holocaust in modern. Things do not happen quickly: we are going to have to work hard to change society. The democrats have let us in their tent and sort of give a damn, so working with them is the most logical route to travel.
Brian NJ
Until we act, the Democrats will always hold us as their tanken for granted bitches. There is nothing to lose. The more and more we talk, the more we just become white noise.
Our vote has just become a granted to the Democratic Party, and we mean nothing to them. 2010 should be our year to make them feel a vote of no confidence.
Don’t worry, we were never even on the agenda anyway, as recent reports from Americablog show.