‘Log Frame House (Tarentum, PA)’
courtesy of ‘takomabibelot’
The Log Cabin Republicans have put out a press release with their list of candidates who they say support their important causes. “A free market economy, a strong defense, smart tax policies, sound fiscal discipline, and without question– value equal treatment for all Americans,” according to their Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper. If you’re a Marylander or Virginian waiting for this to determine how to vote, however, you’re flat out of luck: they weighed in on none of the races in VA or MD.
My initial assumption was that they didn’t have anybody here they could remotely support, but it looks like that may not be the case. Not endorsing Patrick Murry in VA-8 makes perfect sense after he implied he’d support DADT and “traditional marriage” and his primary opponent would not and MD-5’s Lollar is explicit with the one-man-one-woman definition. I’m a little surprised they weren’t down with Robert Broadus in MD-4, though – while he also mentions “traditional marriage” he has a statement on his website that he’d be down with getting government out of the marriage business entirely.
I would not vote to change this, unless it was to remove government completely from the institution of marriage. I believe marriage is a religious sacrament, and should therefore be decided by churches and by the people who attend them. I do not believe people should receive tax benefits or any other preferential treatment from the government because of their marital status.
More likely, though, is that they took one look at this region and said “why bother?” The Maryland House races are in the bag for the Democrats and the Virginia incumbents couldn’t be detonated out with all the fireworks in China. The only race with a (remote) shot of changing hands is VA-11, where Republican Kieth Fimian is trailing and firmly anti-gay rights.
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
I must say that I was quite taken aback by your article yesterday about Log Cabin Republicans not giving input on local races, seeing that you didn’t bother to contact leadership in either of the local chapters – DC and Northern Virginia.
Had you reached out to me, as President of the DC Log Cabin Republicans, I would have told you that nearly three months ago, we endorse four candidates for City Council. And while many in our chapter supported openly gay Republican Matthew Berry in the VA-08 GOP primary, we felt it would be inappropriate to endorse in that race when we have a vibrant Northern Virginia chapter, who was heavily involved with both candidates.
One quick look to our website – dclogcabin.org – would have yielded all the information you needed for your piece. On June 28th, we endorse the four candidates who are running for the Republican nomination for City Council; two of which are gay http://bit.ly/cUUOPm.
On August 26th, we defended our endorsement, and challenged the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) on their scoring of all the local candidates http://bit.ly/apIr8j .
And in the July 14th issue of Metro Weekly, they even quote me talking about our LOCAL candidates. http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5423.
I don’t portend to speak for the national organization. Our Executive Director, Clarke Cooper, is easily able to handle those responsibilities. But I am easily available to speak on local issues as they affect the District of Columbia.
I’m a member of the LCR, and the way endorsement of national candidates (i.e. US Congress) works is that the local chapters make recommendations to the national organization, who then decide whether or not to endorse those recommended candidates. IIRC, the deadline for chapters to make recommendations just ended, so if the MD/VA chapter(s) only got their recommendations in at the end of the timeframe (I don’t know whether that’s the case or not), then the national organization may not have yet had time to check out their candidates.
For local races (state legislature, governor, city councils, county races, etc.), the national organization makes no endorsements, leaving those decisions solely to the local chapters.
Robert, I believe Don emailed you directly with a response, was it necessary to also post your email here?
Those would all be useful endorsements, Robert, were any of our readership to go back in time and vote in those already concluded primaries.
However when it comes to the upcoming federal elections that doesn’t change anything with regards to the MD and VA seats. Berry lost VA-8 and Murry will be the person who Moran will likely beat to by 2 to 1.
I could understand your objection if I had only run the headline and not the entire article, however I think in context it’s pretty clear that the “local races” we’re talking about are the House seats which the national LCR press release provided no input on whatsoever.
This is not the entire list of endorsed candidates; the press release calls itself the “first round” of endorsements (see http://www.logcabin.org/logcabin/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=28150760. Apparently the chapters in those states (CA, FL, GA, HI, IL, LA, NY, NJ, PA, WA) got their endorsement suggestions in the earliest. Candidates from states whose chapters got their suggestions in later will probably be included in a second round of endorsements.
I don’t want to hear a single word from the Log Cabin Republicans about anything.
As a gay man, I’m deeply offended that they can support a party that treats all gay people as political footballs and talks to us as if we are monsters.
In fact, just yesterday (9/22/10), someone inside the Georgia offices of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) posted an online message that said all of us must die. (And the Republican operative didn’t use the word “gay” nor homosexual either, but chose an offensive slang term instead.)
If the GOP is trying to make new friends with what basically amounts to death threats from inside their Senatorial offices, it’s not working in my case!