“McConnell was asked twice about the judge’s ruling overturning Proposition 8,” Dickerson writes. “He could have talked about activist judges, a favorite conservative punching bag. The judge in this case is from San Francisco, a city that in some conservative circles is an epithet. In 2004, a ruling on same-sex marriage from the Massachusetts Supreme Court inspired President George Bush to call for a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. McConnell, though, just said he thought voters would be more worried about the economy.”
The logic is simple. “Both sides fear this,” explained a senior Democrat. “(This) election is all about independents who are ambivalent on (certain social issues) right now.”
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A veteran national Republican strategist agreed, saying, “It raises an issue (Republicans would) rather not have to deal with … (it’s) hard to walk to the line of opposing same sex-marriage and displaying enough tolerance to keep independents and Democrats comfortable enough to vote for you.”
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, put it simply: “A modern party does not want a campaign that’s built around a crusade on gay rights. … it won’t work, for one thing, and for another, it’s so controversial that it would obscure the nonpartisan appeal of the economic issue.”
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