When I first moved to rural west central Texas, voting was a hassle. Democrats were, plain and simple, discriminated against in small but significant ways -- in finding rentable halls for large meetings, in finding polling places that accomodated anyone other than Republican voters.
They're still treated in some quarters with a little disdain but, thanks to some effective complaining to the Secretary of State and federal law suits, the voting hassle has pretty much gone away. Now the hassles are largely the making of the Dems themselves, the ones who don't want to take the trouble to vote in primaries and who leave the same, loyal trio of volunteers alone at the one polling place pretty much the whole primary voting day.
We on the left are no less disdainful of the far right in the Republican party but, though they embarrass and distress, we don't deny them the right to vote or to be idiots in public if that's what they choose. Thing is, even Reince Priebus would agree with us in that mushy attitude so scorned by the far right. Republicans need to back away from social issues. Tom Edsall writes in the Times:
On one side of the intraparty battle stands Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who has suggested again and again over the past week that party leaders need to reduce the salience of culturally divisive issues. “We don’t have time to divide our party. We’ve got to go back to welcoming anyone who walks through that door,” Priebus told New Mexico Republicans on March 23. “We don’t need to be labeling people, ‘You’re a bad Republican’… Reagan said someone who is 80 percent my friend is not 20 percent my enemy. I want to build this party.”
At a breakfast session with reporters on March 18 in Washington, Priebus defended the decision of Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, whose son is gay, to declare his support for same-sex marriage. “I mean, it’s his decision. It’s his decision,” Priebus told the press.It’s not a matter of whether I support his decision; I support him doing what he wants to do as an elected person and as an American. If that’s his opinion, then I support him having that opinion.
Chris Cillizza, an insightful Washington Post columnist, argued that Portman’s decision
was the latest in a series of moves that make one thing crystal clear: The political debate on gay marriage is effectively over.
And no longer would Republicans hold fast to the belief they have the right to climb into everyone's bed and decide who can do what. That, at least. They have a lot more fights to endure within their party before they can turn, full force, on the left. But at least it looks as though the sexuality issue may finally be settled.
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Of course, the gay marriage issue hasn't died... not yet, not officially. But if you'd like more proof that it's on its deathbed and would kind of enjoy a bit of triumphant crowing over the losers, you'll probably enjoy the social and political obituary -- or, as Jonathan Chait writes, the "demoralization" -- of Maggie Gallagher, longtime shrieker-in-chief against the horrors of gay marriage.
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The Republicans see the Supreme Court as saving them from embarrassment.
... The Republican Party and its evangelical core have not moved with the rest of the country, tying the GOP — for now — to a position that's anathema to the majority of younger, more educated, and politically independent voters; precisely the voters the party needs to begin clearing out the wreckage of two consecutive presidential defeats.
The only obvious way to
square that political circle in the short term is through a sweeping
Supreme Court decision — one that strikes down the Defense of Marriage
Act and invalidates California's Proposition 8 law banning same-sex
marriage. Politico h/t The Week
