COMMENTARY | Rick Santorum made his anti-gay feelings very clear in an AP interview. Rick Perry signed an anti-gay-marriage commitment earlier this year according to the Des Moines Register. The Huffington Post reports Mitt Romney told a gay veteran to his face that he disagrees with the veteran’s marriage. In fact, an LA Times report indicates that in the January 7, 2012 debate virtually all the Republican candidates came out as against gay marriage. They may be hurting their electability by doing so.
There is a political phrase, “voting the party line.” Essentially it means that members of a particular party will vote for that party’s position simply because they are members of it. Careful thought about the merits of the position don’t enter the equation — it’s just about supporting the party.
In presidential elections this means Democrats will tend to vote for Democratic candidates, and Republicans will tend to vote for Republican ones, regardless of the candidate’s merit. It’s a view of voting that places ideology ahead of practicality. I’ve seen it happen in almost every presidential election in my life.
Each side has scare tactics it uses to encourage its members to get out and vote the party line. Democrats scare their constituents with images of scary Republicans who will take away their civil rights and give their money to the rich. Republicans motivate their members with fear of higher taxes and by appealing to their bigotry. Both methods motivate party members, but rarely appeal to independent swing voters or pry voters from the opposing party.
While Republican scare tactics may help a candidate win the nomination the right wing’s real battle this year is to win against Obama in November. Winning the GOP nomination by publicly reinforcing the typical Republican bigotry against equal rights for gay people might set a candidate up to be very popular among the right wing, but very unpopular with everyone else.
Mitch Daniels said the Republican Party needs to call a truce over social issues to appeal to a broader range of voters in a Weekly Standard report. I think he is right. Equality is an American value. Opposing it only appeals to voters that share a candidate’s bigotry. If the right wing is serious about beating Obama in 2012 it should throttle back on the hateful rhetoric and beat the equality drum as hard as possible.