While the Donnie
McClurkin flap in South Carolina soured many LGBT folks
on Barack Obama's candidacy, Clinton supporter Warren
Redman-Gress says he hasn't heard anyone in the
state say that they wouldn't vote for him if he
became the nominee. "I would probably smack them if I
heard it!" he jokes.
"Before
last night, there were a number of people sort of resigned
to the idea that she wasn't going to make
it," says Redman-Gress, the executive director
of SC's LGBT organization the Alliance For Full
Acceptance, adding that her wins last night were
"very energizing."
South Carolina is
a flash point for one of Obama's worst moments with
gays and lesbians this election after the senator chose to
keep antigay singer Donnie McClurkin on a statewide
gospel tour despite objections of LGBT leaders
across the state.
Though Sen. Obama
did reach out to the community in the wake of the
incident - granting an interview to The
Advocate and posting a message on Bilerico.com
- Redman-Gress says the debate around the
McClurkin incident is still "alive and well"
and many feel Sen. Obama has not accounted for it
sufficiently.
"As much
as his staffers say he has taken responsibility for giving
McClurkin a microphone and a stage to spew anti-LGBT
rhetoric, I have never found in print a time when he
says, 'I did that and it shouldn't have
happened,'" he says.
Nonetheless, as
Obama's nomination started to seem inevitable,
Redman-Gress has seen growing support for him within the
community. "There's a sense that we can
put up with McClurkin as long as we get a toe in the
door," he says. "People are hoping that all of
the verbal support that he's given to the LGBT
community since then is actually sinking in -
that the man becomes his word."
Perhaps LGBT
Democratic voters are more likely than most of the party's
base to vote Democratic no matter who the nominee, but this
willingness to bend stands at odds with Maureen
Dowd's observations. "Exit polls have
showed that fans of Hillary - who once said they
would be happy with Obama if Hillary dropped out
- were hardening in their opposition to him,
while Obama voters were not so harsh about her," Dowd
wrote in her New York Times column today.
The suggestion
was reinforced by a letter to the editor in this
week's edition of Newsweek from a reader
who asserted that even as "a Prius-driving
vegetarian peacenik who has never voted
Republican," she would be hard pressed to switch her
allegiances from Hillary to Barack.
If Obama were the
nominee, Berkeley denizen Stacy Taylor wrote, "Come
November, I may actually vote Republican. Or I might do
something I've never done in 52 years -
not vote."
But Susan
Webster, an LGBT activist and Clinton supporter in Iowa, has
been observing a different trend, especially among those who
are newer to politics.
"The new
Obama converts are much more about personality and are
saying things like, 'If Obama doesn't
win, I may not even vote,'" says the
47-year-old Webster.
Although she
caucused for Clinton in Iowa, Webster struggled with the
choice as late as a day before the voting but, ultimately,
circled back to Hillary. "In my age group, with
more experienced politicians, there's less
tension, and there continues to be questions about
who's going to win the general
election."
Webster credits
Obama's campaign in Iowa for being less
"insular" than Clinton's, drawing
fresh faces to the process, and training people
assiduously. But she adds that the younger folks "are
more inclined to be very candidate focused -
it's a level of passion that's interesting,
but there's a lot of pragmatism that gets lost
with that type of emotional support for
somebody."
The personality
draw also seems to have worked some magic among other
folks too. Webster has run across a number of
"conservative Bush supporters" who are
ready to get behind Obama but "truly loathe"
Clinton. "It's an odd choice, in terms
of issues, that you would vote for Obama or vote for
McCain but not vote for Hillary," Webster explains,
given the fact that Clinton's voting record and
stances tend to be more moderate than Obama's.
"So
it's really a personality and style decision, which
is why it's odd that people talk about issues
when it seems to me it's so much more of a
leadership style question."
Back in Texas,
where the freshness of casting a meaningful primary vote
still hasn't worn off, Teresa Herrin, president of
the Houston Stonewall Democrats, says she sees plenty
of good will among supporters of both Democratic
candidates.
A Clinton
supporter, Herrin was the precinct chair for district 146 in
Houston, where she noted that Obama had sent an
"overwhelming" force of volunteers to
get out the vote in the days leading up to Tuesday's
contest. Out of the 208 people who caucused in her precinct,
107 went for Obama and 101 for Clinton.
Herrin says that
during registration, Obama supporters were checking in
Clinton backers, and vice versa. "They were really
nice, giving each other cookies," she says,
adding that Obama supporters showed a certain zeal
when declaring their allegiance while Clinton supporters
exhibited a sense of determination. And toward the end
of the evening, "Everyone was really cordial
with each other and just excited to be going to the next
convention."
Whether or not
that good-natured camaraderie continues remains to be
seen. The consensus from the first state to caucus this
year, says Webster is that "a lot more people
on the ground would like to see a mixed ticket.
I've heard any number of people express that point of
view even though the animosity level is high right
now."
Though Hillary
Clinton herself hinted at the prospect during a TV
interview this morning, it's hard to imagine either
Hillary or Barack could subjugate their ego enough for
that to happen.
But an even
bigger question might be, which candidate's loss
would create the greatest number of voter defections
in the general election? Perhaps the Democratic Party
could start some polling on that, if only to decide
whom to target. A Pew poll out last week found that Clinton
"runs better than Obama among self-described
Democrats in the general election test, although Obama
fares better than Clinton among independents." So
much for a silver bullet.