SmartRemarks

When people look back years from now, they may well mark spring of 2009 as the point when America really changed its attitude toward same-sex marriage. Call it “gay marriage,” call it what you will—I prefer the simple descriptive term “equal marriage”—it seems clear that we’ve passed a tipping point.

At the start of this year, equal marriage laws were on the books in only one state:  trailblazer Massachusetts. Since then the list has grown to include Connecticut (following through on a court order from last year), Iowa (also in response to the state’s high court), then Vermont and Maine and (as of this week) New Hampshire, in each case enacted not by court order but voluntarily by the state legislatures. Meanwhile there are bills working their way through the legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania. On the next tier down, three states (New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon) recognize same-sex civil unions, and Washington, D.C. has recently joined Nevada and California in recognizing slightly more nebulous “domestic partnerships.”

There are still setbacks—notably California’s regrettable Proposition 8, which passed last November and was upheld (on very narrow grounds) by the California Supreme Court—but compared to just five years ago, when the issue seemed like a sure-thing hot-button winner for right-wingers across the country in the 2004 election cycle, the change has been remarkable to behold.

It stuns me to realize, given that I used to work for a GLBT-rights organization, that I haven’t written about this topic before. Then again, perhaps that’s because in the circles I move in, it’s just not a controversial issue. Everyone understands that equal marriage is quite simply the right thing to do, and that those who oppose it are either trogolodytes or politicians trying to appeal to troglodytes. (And yes, this issue is another one of Obama’s shortcomings.) There is, quite simply, no remotely plausible argument against it. 

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Tags: Constitution, equal marriage, GLBT rights, polling, relationships

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Obama’s address tonight may well have been the first presidential speech I’ve ever seen that genuinely lived up to the full meaning of the word “presidential.” The first time in my life we’ve had real, effective leadership in Washington. So this is what it looks and sounds like!

It’s sincerely heartening these days, of course, just to hear a presidential speech delivered in complete, grammatical sentences, shorn of angry fearmongering and brazen paralogia. But Obama had to achieve far more than that. He had a tightrope to walk, having to avoid being too doom-n-gloomy (and thereby get accused of talking down the economy) but also avoid making unrealistically rosy promises (and thereby get accused of empty politicking). The times we are in are indeed, as he phrased it, “difficult and perilous,” yet he had to make clear that they are not insurmountably so.

He pulled it off.

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Tags: Bill Kristol, economy, education, energy, financial crisis, George Lakoff, health care, media, Obama, polling, Rachel Maddow, Republicans, State of the Union

President Barack Obama. Has a nice feeling as it rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

It feels like taking a deep breath of fresh, clean air after eight years of holding your breath.

This kind of enthusiasm about the inauguration of a new president is unlike anything in living memory—certainly not mine, at least, and I’ve heard the same thing from folks considerably older. It’s a wonder to behold.

Obama’s name and image are everywhere. He’s on book and magazine covers, he’s on banners hanging over city sidewalks. He’s on soda bottles and baseball caps, coffee mugs and children’s drawings on refrigerators. At the gym yesterday I saw a young woman wearing a T-shirt reading “I (heart) Obama.” Major newspapers have published extra print runs of their Nov. 5 victory editions to sell off at $5 or $10 a pop.

Americans are ready, more than ready, to feel optimistic and idealistic again. After eight years of oppressive despair and decline, the country has (not for the first time in its history) won itself a second chance, a chance to correct the errors of its ways… and proved it deserved that chance, all at the same stroke… by the actions of its citizens at the ballot box.

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Tags: climate, diplomacy, economy, Grant Park, inauguration, Obama, polling

As the Obama administration and the new Congress set about choosing priorities and strategies for policymaking, an important consideration will be the political attitudes of the electorate. That, however, is often as much a matter of perception as reality.

It therefore comes as no surprise that even before Election Day (and with increased fervency once the results were in), status-quo-oriented opinion makers were spreading the meme that “America is a center-right country”:

Jon Meacham in Newsweek:
“America remains a center-right nation… [Obama] will have to govern a nation that is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal—a perennial reality that past Democratic presidents have ignored at their peril.”

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC:
“This country is more conservative than it was when we took over in 1994 after two years of calamitous Democratic rule. It is a center-right country.”

Karl Rove in the WSJ:
“It is a tribute to his skills that Mr. Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, won in a country that remains center-right.”

John Boehner in the WaPo:
“America is still a center-right country. This election was neither a referendum in favor of the left’s approach to key issues nor a mandate for big government. Obama campaigned by masking liberal policies with moderate rhetoric to make his agenda more palatable to voters.”

Rich Lowry at NRO:
Republicans are consoling themselves by telling anyone who will listen that we still live in a ‘center-right country.’ They’re right.”

And there are countless others. As David Sirota has documented, media usage of the term spiked dramatically right after the election, and is still going strong.

The problem here is, it’s just not true.

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Tags: Congress, conservatism, history, media, Obama, Pelosi, polling, Reid, Republicans

As my last couple of posts should demonstrate, I can’t write about all politics all the time. I wouldn’t want to. But this is a political season, and there’s no doubt that the topic is on the front burner. We can all understand the reasons why.

We are seven days away from a momentous change in this country. One week from today, all the waiting and the suspense and the anticipation will be over, and Barack Obama will be elected president.

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Tags: economy, Election 2008, George W. Bush, McCain, Obama, polling, voting

What?  No, not like that!  Ick.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

What this is about is her polling numbers. In the past week, to put it succinctly, they have tanked. On September 11, people viewed her “favorably” 17% more often than “unfavorably”; by September 17, that spread had reversed to 1% less favorable than unfavorable. That’s quite a swing.

It’s interesting to observe that September 11 was the day her interview with Charlie Gibson aired, the first opportunity the public had really had to see how she handles herself off-script. (“Bush Doctrine? What’s that?”) The McCain campaign doesn’t seem inclined to let her do that any more. Indeed, they’re even dispatching their own people to speak for her and take over the spin about the investigation of her “troopergate” scandal. (And didn’t that label already get used during the Clinton years, BTW? Are we reduced to recycling -gate based scandal names now?)

Just for fun, here’s a chart of the drop. (Notice that McCain’s own favorable/unfavorable numbers aren’t doing too great either!)

Tags: Election 2008, McCain, Palin, polling