Fred Barnes's Advice To McCain: Revive Your Struggling Campaign By Using Gay-Bashing As A Wedge

Fred Barnes's Advice To McCain: Revive Your Struggling Campaign By Using Gay-Bashing As A Wedge

thinkprogress.org

BARNES: In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do, but backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain’s going to have to use. You can’t ignore the right. If he does, he’ll lose.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wedge Politics, the solution to McCain's ailing campaign and the tool of the Republican right for far too long.

Now this is a contest and contests involve competition but I feel like 'wedge politics' hadly belong in real politics.

According to Wiki there are 4 main reasons for 'wedge issues'

* A debate, often vitriolic, within the opposing party, giving the public a perception of disarray.
* The defection of supporters of the opposing party's minority faction to the other party (or independent parties) if they lose the debate.
* The legitimising of sentiment which, while perhaps popularly held, is usually considered inappropriate or politically incorrect; criticisms from the opposition then make it appear beholden to special interests or fringe ideology.
* In an extreme case, a wedge issue might contribute to the actual fracture of the opposing party as another party spins off, taking voters with it.

Now all of these things may seem very beneficial to one political party of another, but I would argue they do little good for the people. It is about divisive attacks that cause 'disarray'. What is more these are not really about who is going to do what, it is about finding an issue that upsets people and manipulating them with it.

It is my opinion that wedge issues are the type of tactic that are employed by the politically weak and morally compromised. I look forward to seeing if McCain takes this man's advice.


thinkprogress.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

The unfortunate truth is that if he takes this advise, he will fair much better. Remember back in 2004, when moral issues (or whatever the exact spinword was) were widley touted as a major blow against the democrats?

Is he going to take the campaign in this direction? I don't know. Will he almost guarantee the vast majority of the evangelical vote (20million+) if he does? Yes.

It is sad that thinly veiled bigotry, against ones fellow citizens no less, can ebb and flow our nations political situation.

with the current way of US politics, there are 2 solutions for any problem.

You don't have many choices if it is about the whole race/sex/gender stuff it seems so McCain just does the opposite to make it more extreme.

I hope he loses a lot of voters, though I don't like either of them, McCain would make Cheney look like a nice guy...

Gay bashing is a tried and true tactic for Republicans. Let's go down the list:

• Homosexuality is a sin.
  
• Gays and lesbians choose to be homosexual.
  
• Homosexuals are a threat to heterosexual family values.
  
• Gay marriage make a mockery of traditional marriage.
  
• Gay men who adopt children are pedophiles.
  
• Gays will raise adopted children to be gay.
  

Unfortunately this type of twisted logic strikes a chord within the Evangelical community. It plays to their most base fear that homosexuality is a sin, and therefore must be condemned at any and all costs. It's an effective hatchet job.

Animal

Wedge issues take away from real issues. And sadly, look at the state of the union today after use of wedge issues.

Wedge issues might cleave voters but they have also cleaved this nation.

The introduction of wedge issues by the Republican party was a stop-at-nothing-to-win campaign. The ends justify the means.

Using wedge issues to boost political performance is like illegally using nitrous oxide for NASCAR. At least NASCAR had the ethics to stop cheating.

reply to post by desert


Thanks Desert I totally agree with you.

If we are going to have a functioning just government that serves the PEOPLE that government needs to concern itself with the real issues of the day and not those intended to manipulate the people for one political parties gain.

Fred Barnes is both astute and honest.

I don't know how much McCain is going to push the homosexuality issue, but I think that if he lets it be known that he supports "Don't ask; don't tell" and believes that marriage is a legal arrangement between one man and one woman, he will appeal strongly to most social conservatives, which also includes plenty of Democrats.

Personally, I don't think that McCain and Fred Barnes have any sort of professional relationship whatsoever, so I don't think McCain will do anything just because Barnes thinks it's the best thing to do.

That's one thing about McCain. He's been around long enough to know where he stands and doesn't have to listen to pundits when he makes decisions, which might sometimes include changing his position on some issues, plus he has his own advisers.

Moreover, the homosexual community makes up roughly 10% of the US population at best, some of whom are conservatives, so for McCain to support the wishes of the majority relative to these two issues wouldn't be a bad choice.



[edit on 2008/7/6 by GradyPhilpott]

Barnes is a slimeball. Any time you encourage someone to "USE" an issue to manipulate people... Ugh! That's just slimy.

I actually hope McCain goes for it. He has already said he would be comfortable with a gay president and he thinks gay marriage should be left to the states and a ban on same -sex marriage is "un-Republican".

But Oops! He flipped - he voted "Yes" on prohibiting same-sex marriage...

If he started using it as a wedge issue now, I think it would be clear that he's trying to manipulate voters. Which way does he feel at the moment?

Source

reply to post by GradyPhilpott

Moreover, the homosexual community makes up roughly 10% of the US population at best, some of whom are conservatives, so for McCain to support the wishes of the majority relative to these two issues wouldn't be a bad choice.

It sad to see that you would condone a candidate to malign 10% of the population in order to woe the majority of social conservatives. Where is the honor in that?

I certainly hope McCain abstains from these unwarranted tactics. It is possible to run a clean and honest campaign without resorting to this type of bigotry.

Besides, there are more pressing issues facing this nation. Real issues such as the war, the economy, over-inflated gas prices, the sad state of healthcare... You get the picture. Is it really necessary to garner votes by promising to push the gay community back in the proverbial closet?