Recognizing a losing strategy

While talking with my friend and debate partner yesterday, he commented about my post that the GOP apparently has found a new bogeyman in immigrants and is leaving gays alone, at least for this election cycle. Here's a bit more on the topic.

Yes, in contrast to the start of gay marriage in Mass. in 2004, the GOP has been amazingly quiet this year. Timothy Kincaid believes is beginning to recognize that having gays as their bogeyman is a long-term losing strategy and maybe a short term one too. His evidence is the phenomenally unsuccessful tour by the National Organization of Marriage that tends to draw crowds less than 50. Then there are the polls in which youth say they are pro-gay. And, finally, it appears that GOP women have abandoned anti-gay positions.

One of those GOP women is Margaret Hoover of Fox. She wrote a commentary telling fellow conservatives how Judge Walker is one of them, not a liberal who is bending laws to his view of an ideal world. Then she calls her colleagues to lay off. That's not because allowing gays to marry is the right thing to do, but because if they don't they will alienate the next generation of voters.

Some days we'll take what we can get.

Here's another reason why the GOP has been silent on the issue. Voters were asked which of 13 issues -- economy, jobs, health care, energy, terrorism, budget deficit, taxes, etc. -- were "very important." Republicans listed same-sex marriage last, very important only to 37% of voters. That's the good news. Alas, the bad news is that only 26% of Democrat voters listed same-sex marriage as very important. Put another way, the only ones who care are gays and the professional anti-gay crowd. We're on our own.