Talk Elections

Yeah, I know, copycat thread, but this intrigues me a lot because we clearly AREN'T ready yet... not even close to ready. I'd venture a guess at around 2030? But even that's optimistic...

2000, Bush was the first homosexual president.

not in the foreseeable future

Depends on how outward the homosexuality is.

And how terrible the economy is at the time.

2084

1857.

A gay Republican, at least... we're realistic.

2028

2024.  All it would take is our generation coming into the dominant voting bloc, and that will happen within twenty years.

But doesn't the next generation always try to get away from what the other one was? Such as making this generations children more conservative?

Err, no. We're talking about 'my' generation - people roughly between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four - not the toddlers and grade schoolers of today. And 'my' generation is unusually tolerant of divergent lifestyles, though we tend to be a little on the conservative side economically. If what you say is true, the people coming after me will be slightly more conservative socially, but economically liberal. As it stands, though, things will never go back to the way they were in the 1980s, hallelujah.

I agree with Don on this. 2024 may be a bit early, but not too early. The age gap on homosexuality is enormous--and not surprising. The youngest voters today grew up essentially being familiar with homosexuality. Often with some vicious common stereotypes thrown in, but generally speaking portrayed neutrally. Whereas the oldest generation grew up when homosexuality was still illegal and considered a mental illness.

Does that make a difference; of course, it makes an enormous difference. Support for gay marriage, a good barometer, is around 65% among those 18-29, but below 30% among those 65+. By, say, 2029, the vast majority of those 65+ will be deceased, while another twenty years of new voters with support for gay marriage equal or greater to that of the 18-25 group will enter the voting pool.

The traditional view is that people get more conservative as they get older. This is a hopeless generalization and usually supported, not by tracking individual generations, but by looking at a snapshot and observing that older voters are more conservative. The abortion issue is a good counter to this. The least supportive of abortion group is the 30-44 age group. Those also happen to be the ones who came of age during Reagan's presidency or immediately prior or thereafter. The most supportive group varies, but is most often the 45-64 age group--who came of age during the rise of the feminist movement and the handing down of Roe v Wade.

Generations' social views are largely shaped by their environment in their pre-voting and early voting years, not by rabid liberalism in youth and radical conservatism in senescence, although, given the rate at which society changes, they may appear radically conservative by the time they reach age 65. Abortion is a good barometer for these sorts of things because overall views on the issue have remained very steady for decades; overall views on homosexuality have not.

 Good points you made there.

There should be some way to calculate this. The first openly gay state legislators were elected in the 1970s, but they were few and far between. It took until this decade to get more than a handful, but interestingly, in the last few years we've elected out representatives all over the country, including the most conservative states. It's almost always in liberal districts.

1998, I think, was the first election in which an openly gay person was elected to an open seat in Congress. It took ten years, 2008, for a follow-up. Both were in relatively liberal districts, a caveat I have to include because Tammy Baldwin, amazingly, succeeded a Republican. CO-2 is pretty damn liberal.

We seem far from electing an openly gay senator or governor. It could happen within the next 10 years, but I wouldn't put better than even money on it. Running statewide is a high hurdle. We don't even have people elected to low-visibility executive offices yet, as we've had with African Americans in the South for a while. I don't know who could do it as a viable candidate. Now is the time to identify these future senators and governors. Jarrett Barrios had an opportunity in Massachusetts, but he got stopped for other reasons at Middlesex County D.A. and retired from politics. Christine Quinn? Tough to move from N.Y. city office to Albany. Someone in California?

A future President can't be discussed until we've gotten some people elected statewide. To me, 2024 sounds too early. After all, women senators lagged far behind majority acceptance of equality in the workplace, and a woman president lags far behind that. So I would expect a gay president to also lag behind equality in the workplace and socially, and even that is a ways off in many parts of the country.

To make this long story short, there are too many intermediate steps we have yet to reach before we can contemplate an openly gay President. Generational turnover in the electorate is only a small part of it.

I don't see why it couldn't be 2012. Probably not, but it could happen. It would more likely be a Dem nomination than GOP. If faced with Palin vs. some gay guy are the indys really going to sit it out or vote Palin...because the Dem is gay? We'll assume Obama dies or something to set this up.

 How about the first athiest President?

There is no gay candidate with the stature to run for President and there is no way in hell either Democratic fundraisers, interest groups, or voters would take a chance on a gay candidate who they'd expect to lose big.

That you know of. S/he could come out.


Didn't most people expect Obama to lose all of '07?

Yes, and it's a testament to his quality as a candidate and his campaign's effectiveness that he overcame it. Tough to do. Barney Frank can't.

But we're not talking about Barney Frank. If we construct our candidate by taking Obama and make him white and then make him gay him and then put him up against Palin, he couldn't win? I think he could. We'll even assume there is no live in partner to make it easier.

2028

Even granting that the Republicans put up a bad candidate like Palin--then there's no way a gay nominee would make it out of the primary. Too many qualified straight candidates would run and Democratic voters, including most gay ones, wouldn't consider a gay nominee a viable choice. The same way many African American voters were reluctant to support Obama early. We could say, ok, Jared Polis defeats Sarah Palin, but part of the challenge is identifying how we would ever arrive at that kind of match-up. (It's sad that I'm not sure he could, even.) We really can't reduce this to our guess about the willingness of the electorate to vote for a gay candidate. The development of a candidate is part of the process and a big part of the reason it will take longer than people think. It's why we couldn't make the leap to women Presidential candidates before we had a sizable number of women governors and senators.

I actually think having a partner would help as opposed to hurt. It negates the issue of thinking about the person's sex life by making the homosexuality be about his relationship and not about his potential dating life. Also, I think it's more likely to be a she, but that's neither here nor there.

1860 they say...

All true. Although I do point to Cicciline as a very likely elected gay governor in 2010. Rhode Island may not count as a state for this purpose, however ;)

I agree with Verily. Just look at acceptance of interracial marriage over time for another example.

I forgot about him! He's definitely the best bet right now.

Whoever it is could of course not act stereotypically gay and probably would have to be single. No children either! The fundamentalist/redneck vote would destroy any chance today of course. Not that sexuality has anything to do with how one conducts themself in the office, but then again fundamentalists never voted on effectiveness anyway.

I could reasonably see Charlie Crist getting elected in 2016.

It will take a while, because not only do you need a new generation to grow up, but you need candidates who happen to be gay but are not gay candidates to be elected. We had Black congressman for the last thirty years, but it was not until Mike Espy in the 1980s that you had one who might conceivably have been able to win enough white votes to win. There is no gay candidate right now who is a viable national figure. This is true not only at the national level, but at the state and local level too. Most are too left wing.

For this reason i think the first viable gay candidate will be:

1. Most likely a Republican, simply because it will insulate them from negative stereotypes.

2. A man(or woman) whose primary political background is in appointed positions such as Secretary of State, NSA, UN Ambassador and who then parlays the prestige and attention from that into a political career. Right now no gay politician can be elected in an area where they can have credibility, the credibility will have to be given to them and they will have to bypass the social institutions.

3. They will have to break with the "Gay community" far more thoroughly than Obama had to with the black one, whether by attacking sex education in the schools(I think a likely route), or public health or something similar.

We are still early with gay politicians. Of the ones in existence, the only one I think could have seriously made it was Linda Ketner in SC-01 this year. She nearly won a 62% Bush district, would have had a Conservative voting record, and would have become a national figure instantly. Yet even had she won she likely still would have had trouble moving up.

I think that lesbians have an advantage at this, and had Condi Rice "come out" I think she would have been a viable figure, though she probably would have primary problems for other reasons. That said, I think that had she come out in 2004, and Cheney decided to retire, Bush could have pushed her into the VP slot had he been willing to spend a lot on it.

I think a problem with being a homosexual Republican is that you have to win in the GOP primaries where you'd encounter the evangelical activists.  Granted, the Democratic minorities might not be hot for you

I agree I think it also has to be a woman.  People are a lot more comfortable with lesbians  than they are with penis-to-male-butt sodomy.

I don't know if would be better or worse for this person to have a partner.

To those saying 2012 - who would run?  In 2008 we elected America's first openly gay Congressman to a freshman term (different than those who come out after being elected). 

Not for a long time.

How about the first Muslim President?

Gay male. Tammy Baldwin was out when she was elected.

I could see it as early as 2032, but that's really pushing it. More likely around 2036-2044. By that point most of the Boomers will be either a) dead or b) too decrepit/senile to make it to the polls.

Well, it won't be Mayor Sam Adams of Portland, Ore. (sigh)

Really, I think it'll be the 2090's, just because when I was in high school at my school everyone made fun of gay people. It's kinda sad.

I doubt it, attitudes have changed very rapidly. Even among the general population, gay marriage has 39-44% support by now among the general population (>70% for 18-35 year olds) in addition to high support for opening the military and anti-discrimination laws. That's pretty remarkable considering bi/homosexuality was a 'mental illness' into the '70s. If we keep up the current pace gay marriage will probably be legal and treated the same was a 'inter racial' marriage in another 15-20 years. And considering what's going in Rhode Island (and elsewhere) I'd say openly gay governors aren't out of the question for the Northeast and West Coast this decade...

The reason I think it will be a Republican is because I don't think a gay democrat could win a general election. On the other hand, any gay politician who could neutralize the religious right enough to win a Republican Primary I think would be very likely to win the general. I mean from that point on, it would be smooth sailing(media-love affair, Democrats in awkward position in terms of attacking, free to position as far right as you want on other social issues).

 The latter is important too. Being Gay would give a Republican license to be as far right as they wanted on other social issues and inoculate them from the fallout. Its why I am not convinced that such a hypothetical person would be doomed with the religious right. Especially pos-gay marriage, or if they used a condemnation of the gay rights movement post-Prop 8 as a sister Souljah moment. They could offer religious leaders things straight republicans never could and still be viable.

I have to say that this was the same logic I had for assuming the first African-American president would be a Republican. An African-American Democrat wouldn't win a general election, while an African-American Republican candidate would deny racist white voters from finding a home with the Republican candidate, whether or not they shared the party's views.

Clearly, America surprised me. I can see a gay Democrat following Obama's path, if he were skilled enough: be appealing enough to all communities to not be pigeonholed as a community candidate, and then win against a Republican in an environment so toxic to them that they can't be considered a "safe choice" for people who are otherwise uncomfortable because of racism or homophobia.

I really just can not see how a gay Republican can neutralize religious right opposition. That gets to the core of those voters' identities. There will always be a viable alternative to the gay candidate in the Republican primaries, no matter how flawed that alternative would be in a general election.

1856

I'd consider it irrelevant. Only if a person who aknowledges his homosexuality is elected President can we claim that the country is ready.

Never - it's not gonna happen.

Uh, you are wrong.

If this country can elect an inexperienced, black man, from chicago, with a muslim-esque name, and has several horrible associations over a fairly moderate and respectable republican;

we will elect a gay president one day