In reply to Chuck.

You've convinced me that doing this state-by-state is not a moderate position. I was actually going to send you the Republican strategy memo that you linked below, because the more I see, the more I think you're right, that there won't be that great a political cost for this. But to clarify one thing:

"So we’re supposed to believe that there’s a significant demographic of evangelical gobshits who are swayed by FOX News and Karl Rove-driven GOP ads, who were going to vote for Barack Hussein Obama? Seriously?"

Of course not. But it's not unreasonable to think there's a significant demographic of evangelical gobshits who weren't enthusiastic about voting for Mitt "Jesus-In-Missouri" Romney who will now drag themselves to the polls to show the world how bigoted they are. That's was the theory behind the anti-gay amendments in 2004, right? They got people to vote who otherwise wouldn't have, and once they were lured to the ballot box, they naturally voted Republican? (I'm aware there's a debate over whether or not that's actually what happened; I'm just saying that was the theory behind it.) I wasn't saying anyone's mind would be changed, I was just saying it might affect turnout, especially since Romney was not the first choice of the evangelicals. But if Republican pollsters are starting to think they can't win on this strategy any more, then first of all yay, and second, I'm wrong about Obama paying a huge political cost.

Obama using this as a fundraising thing is, yeah, a bit like the HRC bullshit Sullivan is always going on about, tasteless and tacky and not entirely earned. He may have done more for gay civil rights than any other President so far (an execrably low bar to clear, but if you don't think he's cleared it, who do you think has done more?) but he's not the great liberator. Although I have no problem at all with the ad where he contrasts himself with Romney, because obviously in comparison he's MLK, Jr.

Re: the last paragraph, I do think that to some extent you can have it both ways on a statement like this, because what will trickle down to high schoolers, low-information voters, and non-voters is "the President supports gay marriage, full stop." And that matters, doesn't it? I don't think, at that level of discourse, people will say, "Yeah, but he supported doing it state by state, and it took him forever to get to that point publically, and who knows if he was being sincere or just trying to wring more money from wealthy gay donors?"

At the same time, surely publically coming out in favor of the correct solution to this issue (a law or amendment or court decision legalizing gay marriage on a national scale) has the potential to be politically disastrous. If that large a percentage of NC voters would vote for something so horrible, a public statement that the federal government should overturn that decision would, I think, hand the election to Romney. Because once you get into those specifics, state-level Democrats will start running away. But I'll be disappointed if we don't see further "evolution" in his second term, or in November. Like you said, he's either ignorant or lying and he's not ignorant.