My, how opinions change during a close race--and if he gets gay support, what does he owe them? I think he may be making a big mistake.
Bush Considers Political Alliance With Gays
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Tuesday, June 6, 2000
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Washington -- Gay and lesbian Republicans are in discussions with Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign on a possible alliance that would mark a decided change in the GOP stance toward gays.
GOP strategist Mary Matalin, a well-known television commentator and deputy political director for the failed 1992 re-election bid of Bush's father, former President George Bush, is lending her public support to the gay group. Matalin is married to political consultant James Carville, who helped President Clinton defeat Bush in 1992.
The alliance with gays, still in its formative stages, is an offshoot of Bush's April meeting in Austin with a select group of gay Republicans.
``Members of the Austin group are working with the campaign to help Gov. Bush reach out to gay and lesbian Americans and build upon his broad base of support,'' said Charles Francis, a gay Washington public relations consultant and longtime friend of the Bush family who orchestrated the Austin meeting and is behind the new initiative.
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan denied plans for a formal steering committee, saying the campaign is not promoting the use of coalition groups that serve as proxies for the campaign.
But McClellan confirmed that the campaign has ``an ongoing dialogue about how these individuals can help the governor continue reaching out to people from all walks of life all across America.''
Frances said the group will campaign for Bush and that ``we're certainly going to be out there in states that we're targeting, such as California.''
While still guarded and unofficial, Bush's posture toward gays would represent a striking political shift for the Republican Party.
In the last presidential race, GOP nominee Bob Dole returned a check from the gay Log Cabin Republicans to reassure religious conservatives and demonstrate his distance from gays. He later said returning the donation was a mistake.
This year, it is moderate and independent voters that the GOP candidate wants to reassure, and the more extreme elements of the religious right who require distancing.
Indeed, gays are seen as a vital component of Bush's move to the political middle and a demonstration of a new Republican tolerance and inclusiveness.
``Gov. Bush is uniting all factions of the Republican Party and reaching out to independents and Democrats who support his inclusive, compassionate, conservative agenda for America,'' McClellan said.
Matalin said she offered to help because ``there are a lot of gays and lesbians who have interest in Republican and conservative issues who have not felt welcome before, and I always thought that was just a tragedy and an anathema to what I know conservative values and individualism to be.''
Matalin said she agreed to speak out because ``I really have been sick over the past 20 years that because this slender, slender minority holds that (anti-gay) opinion that all Republicans are painted, and nothing makes me crazier than to be painted as a homophobe or (be part of) the language of hate.''
David Greer, president of the Pennsylvania Log Cabin Republicans and a participant in the Austin meeting, praised Bush's openness to working further with the group.
``Obviously I think it's a great idea that the governor and his campaign are taking this bold step, but I think what it really indicates is that it's not that bold,'' he said.
``No other issue has become more mainstream in the last 10 to 15 years,'' Greer said, ``and especially in the last five years, than gay and lesbian rights.''
It remains unclear whether Rich Tafel, president of the national Log Cabin Republicans, will be included in the new committee. Tafel was excluded from the Austin meeting after running a commercial in the GOP primaries supporting Arizona Sen. John McCain and attacking Bush.
But Tafel voiced his strong support for the idea of an alliance between Bush and gays.
``During this decade, more than any other social issue I can think of, there's been movement from perceiving a group as sort of a left-wing fringe issue in the Democratic Party, and potentially a liability, to now a very mainstream issue, where if you're seen as intolerant towards this group, you're seen as extreme on the right,'' he said.
Most conservative religious leaders reacted mildly to Bush's Austin meeting with gays, in part because they said they were assured by Bush at an earlier meeting of his support for their conservative positions.
However, a group of conservative leaders led by the Family Research Council, whose president, Gary Bauer, made a failed bid for this year's GOP presidential nomination and has been outspoken against gays, sent a letter to the Bush campaign after the Austin meeting demanding their own meeting with Bush.
Bush has declined so far. McClellan said Bush ``meets with pro- family leaders all the time and agrees with them on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of strong families,'' but has no plans to meet with Bauer's group.
Just four years ago, gays were widely seen in the Republican Party as an ideal ``wedge issue'' to divide Democrats and rally anti- gay conservatives, demonstrated most vividly by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which passed with strong bipartisan House and Senate majorities and was signed into law by Clinton. The law restricts many federal benefits conferred by marriage -- such as Social Security pensions and immigration benefits -- to heterosexual marriages.
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