DNC, OFA distanced themselves from the Maine anti-gay resolution.

[madfloridian]

I think that is wrong. I notice they are doing about the same thing on the issues of women's rights. That is wrong also.

We need to draw some lines in the sand about some things, some times.

OFA tells Mainers to get out and vote without mentioning anti-gay ballot measure

"The Executive Director of Organizing for America sent an email to Mainers telling them to vote. Someone I know just got it:

"Tomorrow is Election Day once again in Maine. It's as important as ever for you to get out to vote. And just like you did last year, bring friends, family, and co-workers with you when you go to the polls."

Funny thing (or not), OFA forgot to tell Mainers what issues are on the ballot and how to vote on those issues. For example, there's no mention of Question 1, the measure to repeal Maine's marriage equality law - i.e., repeal gay marriage - in the email (really big surprise, huh?)

What a waste of time and energy. Progressives in Maine are working their butts off to save marriage equality. The Democratic Governor of the State, John Baldacci, signed the marriage law, which passed the Democratically-controlled House and Senate. Baldacci and members of the legislature have been campaigning tirelessly to save the new law from being repealed. Yet, OFA, an arm of the Democratic National Committee, couldn't even say: Vote No on 1."

And the DNC and OFA apparently went a step further. They denied they were telling people in Maine to make calls for Corzine in NJ. But two came forward with emails showing just that.

Nothing at all wrong with asking people from Maine to help out Corzine. What is wrong is failing to show the slightest bit of support for those who were having their rights taken away by the well-organized religious right.

DNC's OFA asks Mainers to support Corzine. Fail to mention the anti-gay referendum.

We reported late yesterday that the DNC's Organizing for America (formerly Obama for America) was emailing Mainers a generic "get out the vote" message that said nothing about the various ballot measures at play in the state, including the attempt to repeal the right of gay couples to marry - the biggest issue in the state at the moment, and the biggest gay rights issue in the country being voted on today (not to diminish the very important election in Washington state). We asked at the time why the DNC and OFA weren't telling Mainers what they'd be voting on, and even better, urging them to vote "no" on the anti-gay referendum.

Since that time, another Mainer came forward and said that she was sent an email from OFA asking her to make phone calls to New Jersey voters to support Jon Corzine's re-election bid in that state. Nothing in the email she received asked her to do anything in her own state, such as vote "no" on 1.

In response to our stories, the DNC denied that they were contacting Mainers and asking them to help out in other states. Well, a second Mainer has now stepped forward and produced evidence that he too was contacted by the DNC's OFA, and that he too was asked to weigh in on the New Jersey race rather than help defeat the anti-gay referendum in his own state.

I find it sad that our party could not openly and honestly support the rights of gays in Maine. Yet they were fearful to do so.

They refused to donate to the cause.

Howard Dean's DNC donated $25,000 to the coalition fighting Prop 8 in California. Tim Kaine's DNC was specifically asked to donate to "No on 1" in Maine as well. They refused.

I think the DNC owes our community an explanation as to why Organizing for America didn't lift a finger (and President Obama barely did anything) to help defeat the anti-gay referendum in Maine today.

I believe Dean offered to campaign against Proposition 8 in CA. That is what should have been done by OFA.

The religious right stands for what they believe, and they do not hesitate to be open about it. They don't fret and worry what we will think about them.

I feel sorrow for those in Maine affected by yesterday's vote.

I feel anger that our party is so fearful of offending the religious right that they will not stand up for the rights of gays and women.

[fascisthunter]

1. why support a party that is too weak to stand up for regular people?

This is my question for the Democratic Party. Are ya worthy, because I don't think you folks are.

[madfloridian]

4. It's a shame they don't take a stand on the issue.

[alarimer]

2. It is clear that ballot initiatives are no place for civil rights issues.

Because they thugs will go all-out to defeat it. If you put women's suffrage on the ballot today, I am convince it would lose.
So I think we need to stop putting these marriage initiatives up for referendum. The ignorant hayseed fundamentalist freaks just need to have this stuff shoved down their throats. That's what it took for other civil right issues.

[madfloridian]

3. Democrats must speak up on it or nothing will change.

You are right, but unless our party takes a stand nothing will happen.

[madfloridian]

5. Should not be surprised considering Kaine's views.

Tim Kaine's opposition to abortion, stem cell research, same-sex marriage, civil unions, and labor issues.

The state also saw the swearing-in today in of a new governor, Democrat Tim Kaine, who opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions. He has promised to sign the measure that places the amendment on the ballot after the Senate passes the proposal once more. Even more depressing is that measures that would have limited the scope of the amendment's discrimination were deep-sixed. (WashBlade):

Kaine spokeswoman Delacey Skinner said that the governor-elect will sign the bill to call for a referendum. Kaine supports the amendment and opposes civil unions, she said. She added that he is interested in discussing measures “to make sure people can still be able to contract with each other.”

More on his views from 2005:

I have a faith-based opposition to abortion
I have a faith-based opposition to abortion. As governor, I will work in good faith to reduce abortions by:

1. Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;
2. Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education;
3. Ensuring women’s access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity; and
4. Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies.

Too often politicians are interested in scoring political points, rather than in reducing the number of abortions. Many of the legislative proposals introduced in the General Assembly, like the ones to require unnecessary building standards for doctor’s offices that perform abortions, are just political grandstanding. They encourage division and lawsuits rather than contributing to the goal of reducing abortions.
Source: Campaign website www.kaine2005.org, “Issues” Nov 8, 2005"

But what, me worry? I am not gay, and I am too old to need abortions. In my area of FL we have the don't make waves type of Democrats. They will be silent rather than take stands that need courage.

[Neecy]

6. Very good info, thank you

I've printed this out and I'm going to keep it handy for the next call I get from the DNC asking for money. I'll enjoy telling them exactly why this regular source of cash for them is closing the ATM.

[madfloridian]

8. I have said often that women and gays are expendable in this Dem party.

It seems that I have been right.

For some reason it seems to be easy to marginalize our rights, to avoid taking stands lest it get in the way of winning.

[juno jones]

18. Yes.

They seem perfectly willing to throw our causes and concerns under the bus.

It's maddening and ultimately discouraging.

[Sebastian Doyle]

7. That's because Tim "more useless than McUseless" Kaine is an admitted homophobe.

As far as I'm concerned this party has no leadership now.

<----- should have kept this guy.

[MattBaggins]

9. Don't ya know about the magical mystical "bigger picture"?

The bigger picture is becoming less fuzzy but it's starting to look a bit like it's going to be either a giant dollar sign or a giant middle finger.

[madfloridian]

17. The bigger picture...

is hurting a lot of people who have no one standing up for them.

It's a shame.

[Tesha]

30. Is the Big Picture the one they've been painting with all the Dry Powder

that they've been saving up all these years?

Tesha

[Mithreal]

10. K&R and agreed

[joeycola]

11. They did not forget. IMHO (It was intentional).

[madfloridian]

15. Agreed it was intentional.

It is the philosophy begun by the DLC....

"We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party.

"Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."

[PHIMG]

12. Obama's Democratic Party = Weak, Run from your Shadow

Bring on the primary challenger and/or a third party challenger.

[katkat]

13. no money from me

The DNC has gotten no money from me lately nor has the DSCC, nor will they it seems. I would like to know how their fundraising is doing since I think I am not alone in this.

I scraped up every last cent in my pocketbook for Howard, but I'm not motivated to give a dime to the above.

[madfloridian]

14. We have stopped all donations until we see in which direction...

the party leaders go.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. Tim Kaine is a religious bigot, full tilt

A sexist, homophobic, right wing anti-science shame upon our Party. I thank you for posting this, women and gay people and anyone who opposes extremism and intolerance, or who respects science should be screaming against Kaine, and the element in this Party that he represents.
How's Tim's fund raising going anyway? He's one hell of a boring speaker, on top of being anti minority and anti-woman.

[madfloridian]

19. DWT covers the DNC's lack of support. It is shameful.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/11/would-marri...

"Yesterday a friend called my attention to an e-mail urging Democratic Party members in Maine to get involved in the election by joining the get out the vote effort-- in New Jersey. You think that may have pissed off the thousands of Mainers working their asses off to fight off an attack from the Catholic Church and right wing bigots against their right to marry?

This morning I've been seeing a lot of e-mails like this one from Michael Crawford: "The absence of the DNC and OFA was definitely noticed in the LGBT community and for a lot of us future donation requests will simply be deleted. If the DNC and OFA weren't even willing to send an email supporting our right to full equality, why should we give them one red cent? LGBT people are involved in virtually every progressive fight from health care reform and climate change to immigration reform and net neutrality and we are happy to do so because we understand their value to our collective futures. But, it seems that time and again when LGBT equality is the question, we are left to fend for ourselves. I don't mean to discount the work of some fantastic straight allies, but for the DNC and OFA this was missed opportunity to stand with members of the LGBT community who have stood for Democratic candidates with our wallets and our votes."

[madfloridian]

20. Pam's Houseblend has a few words as well.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13932/maine-and-the...

"It's simply not time, not in this place. What this loss in Maine (and the victory in Washington State) says to me is that I am so grateful that my civil rights, as a person of color, were not put up to a popular vote. As we've seen over and over in the last year, the emergence of naked racism lives despite laws on the books banning discrimination based on race. Reality-based arguments to people who are raised with bias have little motivation to change their thinking outside of keeping their bigotry out of the realm of law-breaking (and even then -- it still occurs!). The feelings simply go underground.

That public expressions of racism have re-emerged and been cultivated by a major political party shows the work the LGBT community has to do as it waits for equality at the federal level. Changing hearts and minds every day is necessary -- not just when there's a pending bigoted mob rule ballot measure.

LGBTs -- and more importantly, allies -- need to come out of the closet advocating for equality in ways large and small. It's the only way to move many voters, particularly the ones who think they don't know someone who is gay. Too many politicians who support us privately still don't have the spine to step up their game when our rights are under attack. That has to change.

I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but I just wanted to thank everyone for putting so much energy into fighting what is an unfair, unconstitutional battle."

[scentopine]

21. "I feel anger that our party..."

Many of us feel anger at the way leadership has abandoned the rank and file and is now chasing after republicans and their money.

This will not end well. As soon as a smart, media friendly republican candidate surfaces, all those "republican friends" that voted for Obama are going to bolt back to their own party, leaving most of us with nothing and setting reform back another 20 years.

It really is time for a new opposition party for liberals. The current democratic party is smelling more and more like Ronald Reagan's rotting corpse.

[madfloridian]

22. I wonder if the all the unrecs are anti-gay rights, or are...

against the post because it questions the administration's policies. I'd hate to think they were anti-gay rights.

I probably will never know.

[Starry Messenger]

24. Lots of threads in GBLT get unrecced when they are posted.

The same in the big forums. The admins can see who is unreccing them.

[madfloridian]

26. Yes, I heard they could see who did them.

But this is such a painful topic for so many DUers this week, it seems like that makes it worse.

[Starry Messenger]

27. I know of one person who was

TSd for the constant unreccing of GLBT threads. I'm hoping that whoever else is doing so on a regular basis is building up a record and getting noticed.

[jonnyblitz]

36. i believe many hardcore Obama followers hate DU's gay

community NOT necessarily because they are homophobes but because, in their simple black and white world, they see us as "Obama haters" because we criticize him often.

[Starry Messenger]

38. This is true.

It's still very childish though. Isn't that what we call a "low-information voter"?

[QC]

25. It's not an either/or thing, you know.

There's a lot of overlap between those two factions.

[madfloridian]

28. Yes, but one would think a DUer would not disagree about party support

for the group.

At least in my mind I would fully expect the Democrats to be on board with equal right for gays and women.

[mj-bos]

23. Donations? Don't think so!

I'm with ya. 15 years of reliable donations... the monthly "bond" that Dean came up with... special requests... thousands of dollars over the years.

No more.

I started donating directly to candidates in 2008- folks like John Laesch in Illinois. I'll contribute to ActBlue, GLAAD, MassEquality, NGLTF, MoveOn. No more DLC...er, I mean DNC.

[Johonny]

29. It is a smart move if these were really popular but they weren't

You can understand the DNC not wasting time on a clear loser. There's no reason to give yourself a loss when you stand back and pretend it's just a local issue. I think what is making people mad is that prop 8 and this Maine initiative were very close votes. The difference in winning and losing these two votes may have been an appearance or two by Obama and/or other popular Dems. Particularly if they fund raised for defeating the initiatives. It's even worse is Obama did have the time to show up in NJ and back a guy that was an almost sure loser. If they were claiming to be politically smart. What was the point of that?

[madfloridian]

31. I look at it from a different view....not the view of "best way to win"

There are some things our party should stand for all the time, win or lose.

There is nothing now it seems that is sacred to Democrats, an issue they will fight for. Not for women's rights, not for gays, not for a public education system that works.

We seem to have given up our standards to make business happy, to make the religious right happy.

[Johonny]

33. Not sure about that

Kennedy waited until after the march was peaceful to agree to meet MLK. I understand keeping your private thoughts guarded in public on issues you've yet to convince the public on (such as FDR and entering WWII), but in no way do I see this issue as that type of issue. Sometimes it's politically smart not to commit to events that you might feel are morally right but could tarnish your reputation and the cause in the long run. Politics is politics. In this case I can't see how the DNC can argue this point. The poll results show gay marriage is becoming more popular with the public as time passes, there is no violent protests by it's supporters and most important the popularity has reached the point where appearances by people like Obama could very well have made a real difference. Yet the Democrats still seem to be running away from these issues. The public is simply once again way ahead of Dems on this. It's like they are reliving 1990s but a whole young generation of voters have arrived that care not on whit about these type of issues.

[madfloridian]

35. Well, hell, they can continue being "politically smart" without our money.

Hubby and I are in complete agreement on that.

They don't need it anyway.

[Johonny]

37. I think it's an OK move to do so

If they aren't being politically smart or morally correct what else is left? At some point don't you have to conclude personally they don't believe in this cause at all?

[Tesha]

32. Well, then you can understand why we wouldn't want to waste our money on a bunch of losers like

Rahm Emmanuel and Tim Kaine, right?

Tesha

[Johonny]

34. Doesn't feel like they're 20 years behind in political thinking

Or is it just me?

[madfloridian]

39. Update from Americablog tonight.

http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/dnc-misled-gay-commu...

"2. Tobias confirms that Mainers did receive a get out of the vote email from the DNC/OFA (this was not disputed by the DNC). And to his credit, Tobias states that he wishes the email had mentioned No on One, the pro-gay campaign fighting the marriage repeal effort.

3. The notion that mentioning "No on 1" in the Maine GOTV email would have had little to no effect is absurd. If Democrats in Maine know how to vote on the anti-gay ballot measure, and thus don't need guidance, then Democrats in New Jersey equally know to vote for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and thus need no coaxing from the DNC and OFA.

And what's more, Obama won Maine in the 2008 presidential election by 58% (421,923 votes) to McCain's 40% (295,273 votes). We lost marriage equality in Maine by 53% (299,483 votes) to 47% (267,574 votes), or by 31,909 votes. If Obama won Maine with 421,923 votes, and we only needed 299,484 votes to win on gay marriage repeal, then something is wrong here. A lot of Obama voters, 122,439 to be exact, did not turn out and vote, period. So it's obvious that not all Democrats in Maine already knew to vote and which way to vote. They didn't vote at all.

But more to the point, would the DNC have us believe that the aggressive intervention of the DNC and the President could not have helped sway the President's own voters to get out and vote against ballot measure 1, when they otherwise sat home? Clearly President Obama was able to motivate these extra 122,439 people a year ago, but we're to believe that he couldn't motivate them today? We only needed 26% of those people to turn out and help us. We got none of them. And we'll never know if the fierce advocacy of the DNC and the President would have helped, because they didn't even bother trying. And then they tried to mislead us, to boot.

4. And finally, the DNC has concerns about getting involved in local ballot initiatives? Why? They did it last year under Howard Dean, when they donated $25,000 to the coalition fighting Prop 8's repeal of gay marriage. President Jimmy Carter did it in 1978, when he came out against the Briggs Initiative, that would have banned gays and lesbians from being teachers in California."

[Thickasabrick]

40. Well of course they did - sigh. nt

[BillDU]

41. and what position do they occupy?

They are federal.
They are not going to interfere with state stuff because..
they are busy making changes on a federal level which is more powerful than a state level.
The miscarriages of justice on a state level will call for action on a federal level.