Saturday, August 27, 2005
partisan progressives
Here's an interesting analysis at MyDD of why right wing advocacy groups are successful and why what we consider "progressive" single-issue advocacy groups aren't suited to current day politics.
Essentially it boils down to our side not seeing the forest for the trees. Or more accurately, not seeing the forest because we're only focussing on individual trees. Read the comments, too, as they present some decent alternate perspectives.
So what does this have to do with AZ-08?
I'm doing some research on Jim Kolbe's last few races here in southern Arizona. I'll be posting more extensively on all this in the coming weeks. What stood out to me was that the Human Rights Campaign, they of the queers in khakis, was his second largest contributor in the last two cycles.
HRC ought to be aligned closely with the Democratic party because that's the party that's more likely to stand up for gay rights (though you might not know it to look at them since 1996 when Clinton signed DOMA). At the very least, the Democrats haven't been nearly as outright hostile against the gays as the Republicans.
Congressman may be what passes for moderate these days and openly gay, but he belongs to a party and contributes to their ability to maintain majority status that would treat him as a second-class citizen. I'm not suggesting that he should switch parties; there's something clearly attractive about the party that suits every other aspect of his life.
But the HRC, whose mission is to promote equality for LGBT people, is working against their own mission by supporting candidates who are members of a majority that is blatantly opposed to that mission, regardless of the standpoint of the individual candidate.
You can only judge a caucus by its most extreme members. This is why NARAL is being criticized for its endorsement of Senator Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island, and it's why I'm critical of the HRC now.
I'll be writing a letter to HRC asking them not to donate to my Representative just because he's a homo. A Democrat in his seat will be more helpful to HRC's cause than he will. He doesn't even support local LGBT causes.
This is about pragmatic politics - making sure that interest groups are looking at the bigger picture and understanding the political ramifications of their spending or actions.
Essentially it boils down to our side not seeing the forest for the trees. Or more accurately, not seeing the forest because we're only focussing on individual trees. Read the comments, too, as they present some decent alternate perspectives.
So what does this have to do with AZ-08?
I'm doing some research on Jim Kolbe's last few races here in southern Arizona. I'll be posting more extensively on all this in the coming weeks. What stood out to me was that the Human Rights Campaign, they of the queers in khakis, was his second largest contributor in the last two cycles.
HRC ought to be aligned closely with the Democratic party because that's the party that's more likely to stand up for gay rights (though you might not know it to look at them since 1996 when Clinton signed DOMA). At the very least, the Democrats haven't been nearly as outright hostile against the gays as the Republicans.
Congressman may be what passes for moderate these days and openly gay, but he belongs to a party and contributes to their ability to maintain majority status that would treat him as a second-class citizen. I'm not suggesting that he should switch parties; there's something clearly attractive about the party that suits every other aspect of his life.
But the HRC, whose mission is to promote equality for LGBT people, is working against their own mission by supporting candidates who are members of a majority that is blatantly opposed to that mission, regardless of the standpoint of the individual candidate.
You can only judge a caucus by its most extreme members. This is why NARAL is being criticized for its endorsement of Senator Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island, and it's why I'm critical of the HRC now.
I'll be writing a letter to HRC asking them not to donate to my Representative just because he's a homo. A Democrat in his seat will be more helpful to HRC's cause than he will. He doesn't even support local LGBT causes.
This is about pragmatic politics - making sure that interest groups are looking at the bigger picture and understanding the political ramifications of their spending or actions.
