HRC this week endorsed 14 candidates for U.S. Senate, but openly gay Jim Neal of North Carolina was not among them. (Photo by Gerry Broome/AP)
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JOSHUA LYNSEN
Friday, May 02, 2008
Gay voters in Indiana and North Carolina are relishing their high-profile role in next week’s presidential primaries.
Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina, said Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama “are actively courting the gay community” as each works to secure the nomination.
“I think gay voters are really excited about the primary,” Palmquist said. “It’s the first time in most of our lives that North Carolina has had a competitive presidential race in the primary. It’s really exciting to have the campaigns here and actively courting our votes.”
The two primaries, set for May 6, award a combined 187 pledged delegates. That allocation represents nearly half of the 408 pledged delegates that remain to be won before the final Democratic primaries on June 3.
According to CNN tallies, Obama had 1,491 pledged delegates this week to Clinton’s 1,332. Including superdelegates, Obama had 1,727 delegates to Clinton’s 1,589.
Jon Keep, president of Indiana Equality, said the Hoosier State’s gay voters are “split down the middle” on who to support, but can’t wait to cast their ballots.
“This is the first time in 40 years that Indiana’s had a voice,” he said. “Everybody is excited, and I think that’s why the heated debates within the LGBT community — between those for Clinton and those for Obama — are passionate.”
Polls show Obama consistently leading Clinton in North Carolina, but the race is far closer in Indiana, where the candidates are polling within five points of each other.
“You know it’s going to be close,” Keep said. “I think the community realizes that we have two very good candidates, and now you just have to get down to the nuances.”
Clinton this week won the endorsement of North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, who triggered a mini-controversy by using what some consider an anti-gay epithet in his speech.
“This lady right here makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy,” Easley said.
Blogger criticism of the remark was swift, with some demanding that Clinton reject Easley’s endorsement.
In another election-related development, Human Rights Campaign announced plans to engage gay voters and generate support for 14 U.S. Senate candidates it endorsed this week.
HRC announced its endorsement of Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont), who scored 67 on the last HRC scorecard; Joe Biden (D-Del.), who scored 78; Susan Collins (R-Maine), who scored 78; Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who scored 89; Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who scored 78; John Kerry (D-Mass.), who scored 100; Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who scored 89; Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who scored 100; Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who scored 78; and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who scored 89.
Also endorsed were the Senate campaigns of Reps. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who scored 100 on the last scorecard, and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who scored 75. Senate candidates Al Franken of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, both Democrats, rounded out the endorsement list.
Joe Solmonese, HRC president, said the organization is “committed to the victory of these candidates” through fundraising and voter mobilization efforts.
Solmonese noted the winners of this year’s Senate races would cast crucial votes on federal gay rights measures, including efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
For that reason, he said, gay voters would do well to support the candidates backed by HRC.
“The Human Rights Campaign is working from the ground up to increase our margin of pro-equality leaders in Washington and across the country,” he said, “and to ensure that the issues of equality are discussed in 2008 on our terms.”
But HRC was criticized this week for not endorsing an openly gay U.S. Senate candidate from North Carolina.
Jim Neal, who’s seeking the Democratic nod to run against Republican incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole, was not among those endorsed by HRC this week. The organization backed no candidates in that race.
Solmonese said HRC would wait until after North Carolina holds its May 6 primary before endorsing Neal or his main primary opponent, veteran state Sen. Kay Hagan.
“She has a good record,” he said. “It’s a tough race to call in terms of the primary, and so I think, you know, our community down there — sometimes sitting here in Washington, Jim Neal is certainly someone who a lot of people have really been following here in Washington as an openly gay candidate, but our community down in North Carolina is really rather split between him and Kay Hagan. So we’ve got another … couple of weeks, and we’re going to wait and see who the nominee is before we make a decision there.”
Neal said he would have liked to have won HRC’s endorsement, but was unsurprised by his omission from the list.
“HRC hasn’t really been supportive of the campaign for their own reasons, and they’re entitled to do so,” he said.
Neal, who was statistically tied with Hagan in one SurveyUSA poll last month but trailed her by 22 points in another, also has not secured the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
“I’ve always said that voting for me because I’m gay is not good enough reason,” he said. “Maybe I’m not gay enough. I don’t know.”
Chuck Wolfe, Victory Fund president, declined to discuss why Neal had not won the organization’s endorsement, but said any candidate for federal office must marshal considerable resources and funds.
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley this week endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. He angered some gay rights advocates by using what some consider an anti-gay epithet in his announcement speech. (Photo by Elise Amendola/AP) |
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“In working with candidates who apply for our endorsement, we often work them through a series of benchmarks that can be met,” he said. “And I’m not talking about a specific candidate here. I’m talking about a part of our process talks about having early benchmarks. And in a federal race, there are some serious benchmarks to be met early in a candidacy.”
Lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding, a North Carolina resident, criticized HRC’s decision not to endorse Neal.
“I think it’s unfortunate based on the clear differences between the candidates in their approaches to LGBT issues in this campaign,” she wrote.
The endorsements HRC announced this week are part of its broader effort to mobilize “pro-equality voters.”
Solmonese said the initiative, called “Year to Win,” would educate voters through a web site that allows them to register to vote, donate to campaigns, and view a “report card” on where candidates stand on key issues.
Also as part of the initiative, he said HRC would soon begin training more than 1,500 volunteers at Camp Equality sessions.
“Camp Equality trainees will be dispatched to targeted races across the country,” Solmonese said, “to support pro-equality candidates and to defeat discriminatory ballot measures.”
Solmonese said HRC also aims to reach more than 5 million people this summer when it conducts “get out the vote” efforts at Pride festivals across the nation and during the True Colors concert tour.
Paul Begala, a Democratic Party strategist, said the efforts would help boost the campaigns of the 14 Senate candidates HRC has endorsed.
“This is a change election,” he said. “Voters want change. And what is driving that change is an all out rejection of the Bush Republican agenda.”
Begala, who joined Solmonese during a conference call Monday with reporters, said he voted for Clinton in the Virginia primary and has donated to her campaign, but does not work for her campaign and has not discussed the presidential campaign with HRC.
When asked about Begala’s participation in the call, Solmonese defended the former Clinton administration adviser.
“I think what was most important to us is that we have someone to talk to you today and someone who is a good, old friend of this HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, and is as familiar with our work as with the national political landscape,” Solmonese said.
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