By Michael Crawford
We are down to the wire folks with only seven days until election day. In that seven days we can expect McCain, Palin and the GOP to throw as much slime and diversion as they can muster to try to scare, terrorize and fool voters into voting for them.
We can’t let them get away with it. Not this time. Not this year. Not when so much is at stake.
By Richard J. Rosendall
First published October 23, 2008 in Bay Windows
I don’t remember counting down the days before an election the way I’m doing this year. Others are doing the same thing. Last Friday night outside DC’s Lincoln Theatre, as fans arrived for the Reel Affirmations film festival, I found an old friend who was a proud Hillary Clinton supporter selling Obama Pride t-shirts. The crisp autumn air has brought Democrats the smell of victory.
We’re a long way from last January. Back then, a prominent, progressive gay blogger asked me whom I supported for President. “Obama,” I replied. He was incredulous. “Do you really think a black man can get elected?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I said, “but I plan to vote for him.” “Most white people will never vote for him,” he assured me. One of many satisfactions from an Obama victory will be the disposal of smug dismissals like that one.
By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bilerico
With little more than two weeks before election day, now is the time to pull out your little black book and contact everyone in it about Barack Obama.
This election is the most important in at least a generation and for LGBT Americans it is even more crucial. We have the chance to play deciding role in electing the most pro-LGBT president in history. And, the difference between Sen. Obama and John McCain could not be clearer.
Allowing McCain to be elected as president would four more years of the kind of anti-LGBT policies that we got from George Bush. Electing Sen. Obama has president opens up the definite chance for us to finally pass an inclusive ENDA and the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and to finally develop a national AIDS strategy.
By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bilerico
There has never been a presidential nominee from either political party that is as supportive of LGBT civil rights as Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee. He has long fought for civil and equal rights for minorities including the LGBT community. And, in the presidential campaign, Sen. Obama has included LGBT Americans numerous times in his speeches.
After the jump is a list of Sen. Obama’s positions on LGBT issues.
By Waymon Hudson
Cross-posted at Bilerico - Florida
I recently had the chance to talk to Steve Hildebrand, the Deputy Campaign Manager for the Obama Campaign and the highest ranking gay staffer for the campaign.
Steve has spent more than twenty years organizing some of the most targeted and high profile political campaigns in the nation and is recognized as one of the best political strategists in the United States. Working extensively in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, Steve has managed races and ran two political parties. He served as Midwest Political Director for the DNC during the Clinton re-elect in 1996 and as Political Director at the DSCC in 97/98. In 99/2000, Steve ran the Iowa caucuses for Vice President Gore and ran the Women Vote! Program for EMILY’s List in 2000. He managed Senator Tim Johnson’s campaign in 2002 and Senator Tom Daschle’s campaign in 2004. In 2007, decided to serve as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
The full interview, with discussion ranging from LGBT voter outreach to Anti-Gay Marriage Amendments to a fully-inclusive ENDA, after the jump.
Speaking at the HRC National Dinner, LGBT for Obama creator Terry Bean explains what’s at stake this election cycle and why every LGBT person should get involved in helping to elect Barack Obama as our next president.
By Richard J. Rosendall
First published in Bay Windows, October 9, 2008
All the talk of mavericks during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate started me humming the theme from The Magnificent Seven. There they are, a ragtag bunch of rugged loners in a wild country. Will they learn to work together in time to save the beleaguered townsfolk from the marauding villains? Hey, wait a minute — they ARE the marauding villains.
Maybe I just have movies on my mind, since Washington’s gay film fest starts next week; but the McCain campaign increasingly feels like a movie in which the director is desperately trying to make us suspend our disbelief and buy the Republican nominee as the guy to fix the wreckage wrought by the Republican incumbent over the past several years.
Barney Frank is having none of it. The congressman from Massachusetts pounds a simple point he has made for years regarding the gay dimension in politics: that the far better record of Democrats on gay rights points to a partisan conclusion.
By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bloggernista
A couple of days ago I wrote that gays won’t let their friends vote McCain and with less than four weeks before election day that message has taken on an increased urgency. This post the second is a series that I am writing urging LGBT people to talk to our family, friends and co-workers about why a vote for John McCain is a vote for discrimination against LGBT Americans.
John McCain and Sarah Palin have unleash a wave of negative attacks in speeches and ads against Barack Obama and our fight to change our country for the better. They have, as a New York Times editorial stated, moved “into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia.”
What makes you think that if elected they will not turn that same mean-spiritedness and willingness to engage in divisive politics against us?
By Michael Crawford
Just as friends don’t let friends drive drunk, we should declare right here, right now that as LGBT people we won’t let our friends vote McCain. At least not without a fight.
If you think I am overstating the importance of this, watch this video by the Human Rights Campaign on McCain’s long record of opposition to LGBT equality.
I understand that voting is a personal thing, but it is critical that we let our friends, family and co-workers know how much a McCain/Palin administration would hurt us and our families.
We know that Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, but what does she think of LGBT people? The Human Rights Campaign wondered the same thing and its Senior Media Center Manager, Michael Cole to Alaska to investigate.
Spoiler: Michael did not find Palin’s rumored gay friend.
h/t: HRC Back Story