Dick Morris: Why the gay marriage issue helps Bush

The Hill ^ | 3/3/04 | Dick Morris

http://www.hillnews.com/morris/030304.aspx


Just as Bush-41 never really focused on crime as his core issue, but won the election by using the lifer furlough policies that sprung Willie Horton from prison for a disastrous weekend, so Bush-43 has discovered in gay marriage a potentially winning issue.

While opinions are evolving on this question, most polls still indicate solid majorities opposed to same-sex marriages. Though I personally favor them, voters see gay marriage as an attempt by the homosexual community to spread its lifestyle, and they side with President George W. Bush in opposing same-sex unions.

Normally, right-wing constitutional amendments do not make good election fodder.

While top-heavy majorities have always favored amendments banning school busing, requiring balanced budgets and allowing school prayer, those issues have never won the GOP any votes they did not already have. Voters are notoriously reluctant to amend the constitution.

But Bush’s argument that activist courts are forcing his hand by reading rights into the Constitution that have eluded our scrutiny for two centuries turns the tables on this hesitation and puts him in the position of defending the Constitution by amending it. With each indication of the power of courts and city halls to take matters into their own hands, his case will grow stronger.

Sen. John Kerry will lose a lot of votes over the issue. But he will likely lose even more from his handling of it. As he tries to thread his way between his gay supporters and donors and the majority of the voters on this issue, he will come across as looking very weak and very political. His layered position — opposing the amendment, backing civil unions, opposing gay marriage and voting against the Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton signed — will seem disingenuous to voters on both sides of the issue.

What will begin as a values issue will end up as a character test for the Massachusetts Democrat as he squirms around to find a politically safe position.

Because the issue is starkly moralistic, like abortion, voters will be unforgiving of a candidate who is all over the map in his positions on it. Kerry will seem like the quintessential political weather-vane candidate as he trims his views to suit the polls.

By contrast, Bush will come across as simple and straightforward as he fights for his amendment. Of course, the amendment won’t pass. Senate Democrats will not be caught voting against the position of their presidential nominee right before an election. But the on-the-record votes senators such as Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) will have to cast will likely come back to bite them in the November elections.

Kerry’s vote against the Defense of Marriage Act serves as the best example Bush can cite of his liberal polarity. As one of only 14 senators to vote against a bill that a Democratic president signed, Kerry will come across as a Dukakis-like liberal on the issue.

Kerry has other problems, too. Bush’s decision to run TV ads this early bashing Kerry puts the Democrat in a difficult position. With Ralph Nader trying to get on the ballot by petition, the Democratic senator cannot move to the center to counter Bush’s attempt to paint him as an ultraliberal. The more moderate Kerry acts, the more he fuels the Nader candidacy on college campuses and energizes the left of the party to put the gadfly on the ballot.

For those who warn of Bush’s demise, lets all remember that Bush-41 was 17 points behind then Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts with three months to run in the 1988 campaign. But the aggressive negative television ads engineered by the late Lee Atwater closed the gap quickly, and Bush had a comfortable lead by mid-September.

If this President Bush uses his war chest to run early and massive negative advertising against Kerry’s Senate record and raises voters’ concerns about the threat of terrorism to jolt us out of our current complaisance, the current dismal polls could turn around very, very quickly.
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Dick Morris is the author of Off With Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business.






This is exactly what I have been saying. Bush has his wedge issue that will mobilize his base. The more the liberals bring up gay marriage, the bigger Bush's victory margin will be.

I've always liked Dick Morris, because he's such an unprincipled political whore. He worked for Jesse Helms before Clinton hired him, now he gets paid for his opinion, which is almost always accurate.

He's right on the money here.

Kerry got sucked into voting against guns today. That will kill him in the South.

Kerry needs to come out stronger against gay marriages so Bush cannot make it into an issue. Id recap on the fact that Clinton set up the defensive marriage act then go into his catholicness from there.

this week's issue of rolling stone had an interesting article concerning this very topic...and tended to support this statement...it also pointed out the other side that bush's "in bed" approach with the christian coalition could damage him as much as he would damage kerry with this issue...in true rollingstone fashion...pointing out that bush and karl rove are not above using dirty tactics like sticking to the gay issue to avoid confronting the more serious issues about the economy, overall american dissastisfaction, and the still highly unpopulare opinion of bush and his...honesty in the iraq war...apparantly there's something now going around questioning bush and his experience in the airforce...

it would seem they think if kerry can keep it to the issues that directly affect the american people...than bush's usual tactics of innuendo, rumors, and other underhanded activities may not be so detrimental to getting a decent, more...average american type of president in the house.

luckily Greenspan i smaking social securty an issue for the election as well... Bush and co. want to end it.

well, let them have their gay marriage issue for slandering, i do hope, and am gaining confidence that there may be hope...anybody at this point in my opinion would be better than bush..with more stars making statements like

"we have to get george bush's ass out of office...he doesn't care about black people and he doesn't care about young people"

p.diddy at a rock the vote event

maybe those that will be soon effected by the decisions of the president will wake up and see that they have to take america back from people who'll be dead in ten or so years...

unfortunatly black people are on the whole morons in the USA. the fact that they would still in large numbers vote for a pile of shit racist like Sharpton just because he is black proves they are the most uneducated and racist group in the USA.

Kerry was one of 12 Senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act. He is pro-gay marriage, and is on record as such.

Bush did not throw the gay issue into the election. It was forced upon the country by the gays.

but he's making it his focus, rather than addressing serious issues, he's using something as controversial and mixed reactionary as gay relations...there are more important things that need dealt with in this country...in the long run, will gays really hurt the country versus another depression?

He is focusing on it because it is being forced on him. I'm sure Karl Rove is doing a dance because it's a losing issue for the Democrats, and especially for Kerry.

As far as gays versus a depression, Bush has given us the best economy in 30 years, so I think for you to mention the word depression is sort of ludicrus.
Bush is handling all of the serious problems facing our country extremely well.

best economy?

you could have fooled me...

Actually, the Democrats are the ones that have fooled you into thinking it isn't.

If the liberals start pushing "gay marriage" in Chicago, Detroit, and other "rust belt" cities, then it will cost them alot of union votes.

Yeah, how dare those faggots demand to be treated like human beings with equal rights?

no, all the people losing their jobs and needing to find alternative methods for supporting families are what made me see america isn't going down a good path...and as long as bush is president, it will continue to decline.

that's why he needs this gay issue so desperatly, he can't demonstrate that he can run america in the same fashion people became accustomed to before his presidency, it's much easier running people's lives and playing up to those older people, who enjoy interfering with people's lives as much as bush's government...

They have equal rights. How many times do you have to be told that?

Too bad there are less people in that circumstance than each of the last 3 decades...


He didn't bring the gay issue up, did he?