the democrats and gay marriage -- or why obama won't repeal doma

The Democratic Party's insistence on being pro-civil unions but anti-gay marriage becomes more puzzling each day. Perhaps there was some secret meeting back in the 90's when everyone agreed that Americans would never accept gay marriage and that, assuming the Democrats wanted to win elections, the Party (at least on the national level) should stick to the civil unions line. The results of the 2004 election seemed to more or less vindicate this idea (many analysts attributed Kerry's loss in Ohio to rural voters coming out in droves to vote for a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage).

And yet, at a time when 44% of Americans support gay marriage and even Sarah Palin agreed with Joe Biden's characterization of her position on civil unions being "that there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a heterosexual couple and a homosexual couple" (although, to be fair, it's never clear how well Palin understands what, exactly, she is agreeing to at any given moment), this policy seems increasingly out-dated. Nevertheless, the Democrats' equivocation on the gay rights front continues to rear its ugly head. After filing a motion last week to dismiss a case challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (which rightfully outraged gay rights advocates at the time Clinton signed it into law), yesterday the president failed to include healthcare in a package of domestic partnership benefits for same sex couples.

After 8 years of watching Bush relentlessly pander to his base, it's pretty understandable that large parts of the LGBT movement (not to mention the rest of us who voted for Obama assuming he would, you know, back all those liberal social causes he claimed to support or whatever) are somewhat upset. No one (or at least few of us pragmatists) expects Obama to champion gay rights to the detriment of other priorities. Nonetheless, it would nice if he'd refrain from using the occasion of dismissing a case challenging DOMA on the grounds of insufficient legal standing as an excuse to launch into a whole-hearted defense of the overall merit of the Act.

could the dems still reach magic number 60?

As it stands, the Democratic Party has picked up 6 seats in the Senate (with 3 races, in Georgia, Alaska and Minnesota, still too close to call), giving them a total of 57, if you count the independents Bernie Sanders and, more questionably, Joe Lieberman, who caucus with Democrats. Now that he is no longer needed to hold a razor thin 51-49 lead for the Democrats, Lieberman's standing in the party is becoming increasingly tenuous, so even in the unlikely event that the Democrats do miraculously manage to sweep up those three seats, it's unclear how filibuster-proof their majority would actually be. In reality, the Dems would be lucky to pick up any of the remaining seats. In Georgia, Chambliss leads Martin by over 100,000 votes, but remains some 9,000 votes short of the absolute majority required by Georgia State Law (due to Libertarian candidate Buckley capturing 3% of the vote). Unfortunately, a run-off win does not look promising for the Democrats. Even if most Libertarian voters go for Martin (and that in itself is no guarantee), it will not make up for the loss of a large number of black voters, which is the reason why the race was even close in the first place. The Obama candidacy had an enormous effect on black turnout and registration; African Americans made up an unprecedented 28% of the Georgia electorate. According to exit polls, 93% of them also voted for Martin. It is highly unlikely that a run-off Senate election will bring nearly the same level of enthusiasm. If the Democrats were going to take the Georgia Senate seat, they would have been able to do it because of the Obama effect; without it, they will most likely be left with an older, whiter constituency which is less likely to pull the lever for Martin.

The Alaska senate race remains very much up in the air; Stevens leads Begich by 3,527 votes, but at least 50,000 (and possibly as many as 70,000) absentee and early votes need to be counted. While Begich certainly could win the election, in most years, absentee and early voters tend to be older and more likely to be in the military (not the Democrats' target constuencies); however, this year has proved the exception in many respects, including producing a much more liberal early voting crowd. However, Stevens is further helped by the fact that at least some portion of these voters would have cast their ballots before he was convicted on seven counts of felony on October 26 (the Monday before Election Day).

Minnesota might be the Democrats' best bet in the three undecided races. Al Franken would almost certainly have carried the race if Dean Barkley hadn't scraped off 15% of the electorate, most of whom probably would have otherwise voted down the ballot for the Democrats. 27% of Independents, who make up a full quarter of the Minnesota electorate, voted for Barkley, 38% for Franken and 33% for Coleman; by contrast, Independents went for Obama 56-39. We can safely assume that Barkley pulled more from Democrat-leaning Independents than he did from Republican-leaning ones. As it now stands, Coleman leads Franken by a mere 206 votes, far less than the 1/2 of a percent required for the victory to stand without a recount. Franken could certainly manage a victory here, but it's essentially a toss-up. Supposedly, the final count should be done by December, but given the general pace of these things, we'll be lucky to know the result by Obama's Inaugaration Day.