Gay debate not a likely winner in swing states
Regardless of what actually transpires tonight in Los Angeles when Democratic candidates participate in the first presidential debate sponsored by gays, the mere fact that it is happening is a milestone.
But for those party leaders worried that it also could prove a political millstone in some places, new polling in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania will only add to their concerns.
The poll's key findings, as spelled out by the assistant director in this article at Politico.com, are that in these important swing states, voters "are more likely to see the endorsement of a gay rights group as a reason to vote against, rather than for, a candidate. That is especially the case among independent voters -- often the key to winning these critical states ... ."
The survey was conducted by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Connecticut, and the margin of error for its total sample in each state is plus-or-minus 3 percentage points. You can find the poll's charts here.
The results among all voters in Florida and Pennsylvania were almost identical. In both, 28% said backing from gay rights groups would make them less likely to support a candidate. In Florida, 10% said the endorsement would make them more likely to vote for a candidate; in Pennsylvania, the figure was 11% (the rest said it would make no difference).
In Ohio, 34% of voters said the backing of a gay rights group would make them less inclined to support a candidate, while 10% said it would make them more likely.
Some voters who said they would be negatively influenced by a gay group's endorsement would oppose giving a candidate such a nod on other grounds, of course, so this issue would not necessarily be the determining one. And a look at the breakdown among independents shows that the split between the less likely to vote and the more likely is not as dramatic as for the overall sample (that's especially so in Pennsylvania).
Still, the findings counter our previous item on the potential plus of courting gay voters, who reportedly have strong turnout rates.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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The issue is not whether people approve of the gay agenda. We all know that Repukeliscum hate gays, and this is just another reason for them to vote against Democrats. However, they wouldn't have voted democrat in the first place. The issue lies with the CROSSTABULATION of attitude about some gay issue and self-identification with political party. For what frequency of independent (right- moderate- left-leaning) is the gay issue the defining issue to vote Repukeliscum?
Posted by: POed Lib | August 09, 2007 at 07:12 AM