Courting the Gay Vote - presidential candidates for year 2000

Progressive, The, Sept, 1999 by John Nichols

Despite lingering frustrations, however, the 2000 Presidential campaign is fundamentally different from its predecessors. Never before have candidates competed so openly or so vigorously for the votes of America's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gendered community. Even if they are not ready to take bold stands, Gore and Bradley are both pursuing major efforts to recruit support, seeding their campaign staffs with lesbians and gay men, sitting for extended interviews with lesbian and gay publications, and tailoring schedules and positions to appeal to an electorate that in some key primaries could contribute 10 percent or more of the vote. The two Democratic candidates have pledged to recruit historic numbers of gay and lesbian delegates to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

"The days when the gay and lesbian community had to court candidates--when we had to hope that they would pose for pictures with us or circulate a position paper that didn't say very much--are over," says Urvashi Vaid, director of the New York-based Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They're coming to us now. From the perspective of just a few years ago, it's extraordinary to be able to say that we have major contenders who are going out of their way to reach our community. We're not begging the Presidential candidates and their campaigns for recognition; they're begging gays and lesbians for votes and for money."

That was obvious in July, when Tipper Gore was the featured speaker at the first-ever Washington fundraising event organized by a Presidential campaign specifically to raise money from the lesbian and gay community. "All people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to be a part of a loving relationship in a family without fear of recrimination or discrimination," she told a crowd that contributed $150,000 to her husband's campaign. Before the event ended, she was promising that her husband, as President, would "fight for your dreams. He will fight for our dreams."

The pursuit of the gay and lesbian vote does not stop with the Democrats. While the most conservative GOP contenders--former Vice President Dan Quayle, commentator Pat Buchanan, and Christian right activist Gary Bauer--continue to spout anti-gay rhetoric, the campaigns of Republican front runners George W. Bush, Elizabeth Dole, and John McCain have cautiously reached out to GOP-linked gay and lesbian organizations.

The Log Cabin Republicans, the party's largest gay and lesbian grouping, may have gone a bit overboard when--following an oblique reference by the Texas governor to his willingness to appoint qualified people--they sent out an April press release headlined: BUSH TAKES BIG STEP IN FAVOR OF GAY RIGHTS. But there is no denying that Bush has, at most turns, refused the harsh anti-gay positioning demanded by the religious right. He has even been quoted as personally pledging to Washington, D.C., gay Republican activist Carl Schmid, "I will always treat [lesbians and gays] with respect, and that is what you deserve."