Gays Bloggers and Activists played a part in the DEMS election fallout

I'll say it and put it on the carpet... Some of our gay bloggers and activists played a decent role in the Republican win last week.

They can't deny it. After all they did in order to hold Obama and Dems accountable, their actions took on a powerful negative effect. I will highlight a few of these actions from the past 2 years:

• Showtime! Ever since Obama was elected, several folks were all over CNN, MSNBC and the internet, dooming Obama's actions on the LGBT community. Dan Savage and Dan Choi, could be found any news outlet, pushing a lot of their anger, but never offering many solutions.
• Blog, Rant, Blog- Pam Spaudling, John Aravosis, David Mixner and journalist Kerry Eleveld spent the majority of their blogs or posts about Obama/Dems failing at everything Gay. In fact, they blogged more negative posts on Obama/Dems than positive. After a while, a faithful reader of their work would be convinced that Obama hated Gay people. I'm not saying they should be all roses and unicorns about Obama, but they could have at least threw a dog a bone.
• Boycotts- There were at least 3 DNC boycotts, trying to make gays close the gAyTM. It didn't really work, but it did send the message to everyone that was watching.
• Attacking within. There were so much infighting within our activists. Without strong leadership, everyone with after everyone. The usual target was HRC. In fact, the online Town Hall meeting of LGBT bloggers spent most of their time attacking HRC and yet, STILL not putting out many solutions.
• getEQUAL- They could have been great, but their breakout performance left many confused and bitter. I hope they will get better in time.
• Confusion/Half-truths/partial stories - John Aravosis was a puppetmaster. He basically spat out a lot of foolishness, that critical thinking person could easily see through. However, his popularity allowed him to manipulate many folks into believing in his crap. Only a few LGBT activists and writers called him out, only a few.
• No accountability on the quality of the info spewed out by some LGBT bloggers/activists. And if you challenged them, you were attacked by many of their drones.
• Presenting the LGBT Civil Rights movement as a quick fix. If anything, the Civil Rights movement in the 60s should have taught us that this will take time.
• Not educating ourselves. I believe some us took a lot info for granted and not challenge the validity of the content or the credibility of the writer.

Okay, I'll stop there, because there are more issues. Yes, there are things Obama/Dems can improve on, but we really need to do the same. Looking back at everything over the past 2 years, made me really sad. The lack of leadership and clarity cause many of our fam to vote Republican or not vote at all. Instead of educating our peeps, some of our "activists" used them to their own advantage, trying to build up their readership by causing chaos and confusion.

We really did a number on ourselves, we really did. And instead of claiming that it didn't happen, we need to own it, so we can move forward and not go down this path again.

UPDATE: That GOP/Gay/DOUBLED stuff... maybe not so much

Here is some interesting info that might put some fears to rest. The sample size of this Exit Poll claiming that 1/3 of gays vote GOP, was small.

See here:

It's not clear how widespread the trend is. Hunter College Professor Ken Sherrill, who studies the gay electorate, tells The Upshot that the sample size was small, so the magnitude of gays' shift toward the GOP may be less pronounced than it appears. (About 110 respondents of the 3,800 included in the cable exit polls identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, representing about 3 percent of all voters.)

He also thinks the shift is more related to the economic downturn than to dissatisfaction with the pace of gay-rights legislation, since there was no reason for voters to believe GOP candidates would be more amenable than Democrats to LGBT issues such as gay marriage or ending the military ban on openly gay service.


"There's no good reason to suggest that the shift was greater than the shift in the electorate as a whole," Sherrill said. "Given there is every reason to believe that LGB voters were as affected or more affected by the economic downturn, it's not surprising to see a shift."

(UPDATE: After reviewing the full data, Sherrill says there was a disproportionate drop in Democratic support among LGB voters compared to Hispanic, black, and young voters. Though the sample size is still very small and thus there's a large margin of error, Sherrill now says the drop may be attributed to "dissatisfaction with the pace of change on LGB rights over the past two years.")

Even with the shift, gay voters remain among the top five demographic groups that vote Democratic.

So, this is kind of better.

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Record Number of Gay candidates Won last night

Despite of the loss of the House, we were still victorious! A record number of gay candidates won seats, in fact, 123 openly gay candidates made history.

From CNN:

They include David Cicilline who is running in Rhode Island for the 1st Congressional District seat. The former mayor of Providence, R.I. could become just the seventh openly gay person to serve in Congress, and only the third to be elected for the first time as an openly gay candidate.

Victory Fund also finances candidates like Rep. Patrick Murphy (Pennsylvania, 8th Congressional District) who is not gay and is an Iraq War veteran. Murphy fought for an amendment to repeal the military's "Don't ask, Don't tell' policy in May.

Some of these races are important to the gay community not just because the candidates are gay, but because they are in states where legislation that affects gays is up for debate. Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, Washington and Colorado have state legislative and gubernatorial elections that could determine whether bills will pass granting gays domestic partnership benefits.

Our battle continues, hopefully these new editions will push us forward.

Question of the Day

What are your predictions for the mid-term elections?

Me, I think the media has over-hyped Democrats losses, but what do you think?

Nate Silver doesn't think the GOP will Takeover

You hear this everyday. Repubs are going to takeover!

The media and several LGBT bloggers pour this mess out like cold Kool-Aid at a Southern Georgia summer camp.

Well, it turns out that the Repubs may not win a lot after all. Super-whiz, Nate Silver might have the truth in his hands:

This consensus, however, is somewhat misleading — because it does not adequately capture the fact that there is considerable uncertainty on either side of that 50 seat estimate, more so than in past elections. This is for two principal reasons.
First, as we mentioned, about twice as many seats are in play as in other recent elections. Thus, fairly subtle shifts in the political environment between now and Nov. 2 could have relatively profound implications for the seat count.

Second, there is considerable disagreement among pollsters on the magnitude of the enthusiasm gap. If Gallup’s likely voter model, which implies extremely lopsided turnout in favor Republicans, were to be correct, G.O.P. gains would be well in excess of 50 seats. Other turnout models, however, imply more like a 4- or 5-point enthusiasm gap, which would be more consistent with patterns in a typical midterm election. With an enthusiasm gap of that magnitude, Democrats would probably lose the House only narrowly and would have decent chances of holding onto it.

It is also important to remember that there are some factors, like the fact that many pollsters do not include cellphones in their sample, that could potentially result in the polls underestimating the position of Democrats. Our model assumes there is a chance that the overall “consensus” of polling could be off, which could affect the results in a great number of individual districts. This is one reason that it thinks such disparate outcomes as a 70-seat Republican gain or a mere 30-seat gain are not exceptionally unlikely. But such systematic bias in the polling could run in either direction.
Some trading markets imply that Republican chances of a House takeover are already in the neighborhood of 85 percent; in my view, this is too confident a position.

Usually, he's on point. I don't think the Repubs will gain many seats. I just can't see this happening. However, we will find out in two weeks, right?


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