To hear the local left and media – pardon the redundancy – you’d think Target came out advocating killing puppies. In fact, for the left and media (ptr), it may have been even worse – committing apostasy.
But is the “news” bad for Emmer, the “MNForward” PAC, or even for Target?
There are a couple of reasons I’m going to suggest “no”.
Dayton’s Already Won The Base: A friend of this blog once suggested to Tom Emmer that he needs to quit trying to win the conservative base. There may be a point to that. But this issue – especially the “Emmer is Anti-Gay” slur, about which more below – is the same thing in reverse; it’s the left’s attempt to inflame the lefty base over some of their big code words; “anti-gay” and “corporate money”. It’s possible that people who haven’t been converted to one side or the other might pay attention to this story – but for a variety of reasons, I think that at the very very worst this story has short legs.
That Sweet Stench of Desperation: But there is a reason to try to get the lefty base all riled up – because they are in the midst of a lethargy that reminds me of Republicans in 2008 or 1996. The widespread, outside-the-party-meeting passion is all on the right these days. The DFL knows it – and has do to something to get their base to give a damn, especially given the spectre of having to go out and get people excited about Mark Dayton in less than a week. And so the left needs to create a boogeyman.
Now granted it’s a purely negative campaign – “Vote for Dayton or…um…there’ll be a conservative in office!”. But consider the alternative; “Vote for Mark Dayton; he’ll tax people who work hard enough to earn over $250K, and probably the rest of us too. And then…um…”
And a negative campaign is better than no campaign at all.
Emmer Is Not Anti-Gay: There are probably a thick dollop of DFLers and not-that-smart independents who hear “supports traditional marriage” and think “hates gays”. But people in the real world, the world of the intelligent, do in fact know that the vast majority of people, regardless of their politics, both accept gays as equals and, judging by the voting on gay-marriage referenda nationwide, do not accept the idea of gay marriage. It’s a bit of cognitive dissonance; smart people see cynical people saying “that means he’s rabidly anti-gay” to dumb people, and shake their heads in disgust. And, jokes about “Governor Ventura” aside, most people are smarter than that.
Although perhaps the Emmer campaign needs to send the sound bite from his appearance on the NARN at last year’s State Fair to those who believe A4aBM’s slur:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: What do you think about gay marriage?
EMMER: I don’t care! [Audience laughs] No, seriously – I believe marriage is about procreation – but this next election is all about jobs.
I suspect that’s not too far afield from what the vast majority of Minnesotans – regardless of their politics – believe.
It’s Not A Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay World: Look – in any population, you’re going to find 1-2% of the people are actively gay, and probably 1-2% of the population who genuinely hate gays. In between you have the rest of us; people who would fight for a gay person’s right to political and legal equality (to say nothing of their right not to get beaten up), but need to be convinced about gay marriage. And among that 96% are not a few people who either care enough about politics to ask “er, how is this “anti-gay?”, and not a few more who say “someone hates gays? Sack up, fellas, I got plenty of people who hate me for being a Korean grocer/white Christian/Lebanese mortgage broker/Armenian professor/Jew. Life’s tough; have a falafel and join the freakin’ club”. Either way, playing the victim card only gets you so much traction when times are as tough as they are.
Especially because…:
MNForward Is Right: MNForward’s agenda has nothing, bupkes, to do with social policy. It’s about trying to make sure we get a responsible government – one whose policies will not actively trash this state’s already dicey business environment. Jobs are hard to find these days; the last thing we need is to make it harder to create, get and hold (private sector) jobs.
James Carville said it; “it’s the economy, stupid”. And deep in their conference room down on Plato Boulevard, you just know the DFL has to admit to itself that this is a lousy year to be selling dime-store socialism – but it’s the only card in their hand. And so they have to draw attention away from it, which leads to…well, see the “Sweet Stench of Desperation” section, above…
I think that when the dust settles on this that, even if the media manages to hush up the genuine discussion about A4aBM’s funding and the speciousness of the “anti-gay” claims, that Tom Emmer and, most likely, Target will both come out ahead. The whole flap reeks of last-ditch desperation.
And even Minnesota voters don’t get that silly.
Very eloquently said Mitch!!
Actually, it’s closer to 8-10%; and then you have to consider the feelings of family and friends of people who are gay.
Target is stuck, because if they ask for their money back, they risk alienating another significant group of people.
My guess is that they are gong to eventually cough up an approximately equal amount in donations to the other side to restore their position of neutrality.
I understand that the Youtube video of the mom cutting up her credit cards is receiving a lot of hits. And Target has had to change their phone system to handle the influx of calls. AND change their web site.
If it is sustained, I think it will have an impact on their political donations in the future. That argues against an indifferent democratic base.
The Dems haven’t even chosen a candidate yet, and some polls show Emmer trailing.
I understand that the Youtube video of the mom cutting up her credit cards is receiving a lot of hits.
Yeah, and the video of the kid singing “chocolate rain” has gotten tens of millions. Youtube hits are, above a certain point, a measure of the number of stupid people you draw.
The Dems haven’t even chosen a candidate yet, and some polls show Emmer trailing.
You act like that’s counterintuitive. No, DG – that’s the norm.
Even in a year where the Dems would be hammering on each other, that’d be the case; they have no negatives yet. And this year is moreso; all three DFL candidates have been sliming Emmer, not each other (basically conceding the race to Dayton, I suspect). They have outspent Emmer 16:1 on advertising so far; they have ALREADY spent more attacking Emmer than they spent attacking Pawlenty in the ENTIRE 2006 race.
(But for Gaia’s sake, keep money out of politics, you dirty Republicans!)
THAT, and the fact that Emmer has been focusing on retail campaigning, is why they show a lead so far.
Since your’e new at this, DG, I should also point out that the Minnesota Poll is famously unreliable, but reliably overpolls Democrats. They poll random adults, rather than likely voters. At this piont in the 2002 race, they showed Pawlenty getting 28 percent. Emmer’s at 30 – and the much more reliable Rasmussen poll shows him within the margin of error, even given all the above.
Rule of thumb, DG; if the Twin Cities media says it, distrust and then verify.
I work with Lefties and go to school with them. And these Lefties are upset about Target. They are also the same people who believe that the Tea Party is racist, who think corporate money is dirty by definition (but remain blissfully unaware of union cash), who think the Iraq War was about oil, etc… In other words, they aren’t open-minded people who are up for grabs (in the realm of politics.) They are people eager to believe the worst about their political enemies and to stir up a ruckus in their echo chamber.
Many of us are sick to death of their hypocrisy and sanctimonious do-goodism. So let them scream and whine and gnash their teeth.
Will Target cave? Perhaps. After all, they’re hardly conservative. But I think it would be a mistake to be weak. Frothing Liberals are not their only clientele.
Actually, it’s closer to 8-10%;
That number is from Kinsey, which has been widely debunked. Gallup says that depending on whom you believe, it’s somewhere between 2-3%.
Dog:
“…then you have to consider the feelings of family and friends of people who are gay.”
You seem to be missing something slightly important, Dog.
Who did you think is in the 96% that Mitch mentioned?
“Many of us are sick to death of their hypocrisy and sanctimonious do-goodism.”
+1 to that.
“So let them scream and whine and gnash their teeth. ”
I sooooo hate the smell of cat piss!!!
What bothers me about the attempts to define the extent of the gay population is that no one seems to be asking more basic, less comfortable, but perhaps more intelligent questions.
You have “gay people were born that way” people (who tend to be in favor of normalizing homosexual beviour) and “gay behavior is a choice” (people who tend not to favor normalizing gay behavior) but no one seems to consider that perhaps some gays are born that way and some adopt gay behavior for their own reasons. There would, presumably, be people who could have gone either way but chose a hetero or homo sexual lifestyle do to a social environment they chose or that was forced on them.
“I understand that the Youtube video of the mom cutting up her credit cards is receiving a lot of hits”
I also understand that the stoned guy talking about the rainbow and the weird kid screaming “Leave Britney Alone!” also were big hits on YouTube.
So, now that Target has apologized, are you going to stop making extra trips?
I wouldn’t dismiss the youtube video so quickly. Stupid people also watch TV ads and those seem to be pretty essential to running a campaign.
I suspect most Americans would be fine with gay marriage, if it weren’t for the gay lobby. Their protests are disgusting, their outing of other gays is reprehensible and their legal actions show total disregard for democracy. That’s why I suspect they lose big time when the question comes up for a vote, and it’s why I don’t think Emmer should be overly concerned.
I don’t support gay marriage, but i don’t think the republic would collapse if it were legalized.
But the gay lobby is one of the most irritating ones there is, you’re right. The one time I ran afoul of the regional one, I got a week of scabrous, irritating spam and email.
Their protests are disgusting, their outing of other gays is reprehensible and their legal actions show total disregard for democracy.
And their parades are borderline pornographic. Keep the kids away.
“That number is from Kinsey, which has been widely debunked. Gallup says that depending on whom you believe, it’s somewhere between 2-3%.”
Mitch, I just wanted to point out that the article that you just linked quoted the number at 21%-22%. Not 2-3%. That’s what happens when you stop reading as soon as you find the answer you’re looking for.
“Mitch, I just wanted to point out that the article that you just linked quoted the number at 21%-22%. Not 2-3%. That’s what happens when you stop reading as soon as you find the answer you’re looking for.”
Umm, no.
“In August 2002*, Gallup asked Americans, in an open-ended format, to estimate the percentage of American men and the percentage of American women who are homosexual. The average estimates were that 21% of men are gay and 22% of women are lesbians. In fact, roughly a quarter of the public thinks more than 25% of men and 25% of women are homosexual. It should be pointed out, too, that many Americans (at least one in six) could not give an estimate.
Male respondents tend to give lower estimates of both the male and female homosexual population than female respondents do. The average estimates among male respondents are that 16% of men and 21% of women are homosexual. Among female respondents, the average estimates are that 26% of men and 23% of women are homosexual. Somewhat interestingly, both sexes believe there are more homosexuals in the opposite sex than in their own sex.”
In other words, they asked Americans to estimate what they thought the percentage of the populace that was gay.
That’s what happens when you don’t have reading comprehension skills.
AB
There were leftybloggers I expected to make that error – seeing the Gallup poll measuring peoples’ opinions about how many gays there are – and mistaking it for actual numbers.
You, however, were not the one I expected.
AB
if i live in highland park and Gallup calls and asks me to estimate how many people drive volvos I’m gonna estimate 36% and if they ask me who wears alpaca my estimate is likely 21%
on the other hand if I live in Anoka and they call my estimate is 7% volvos and 4% alpaca.
asking someone to estimate their neighbors heart is not the same as doing a self reporting poll i.e. “Are you or are you not…”?
I’m not saying I’m agreeing with the numbers, but that was the thesis paragraph of the article. You just didn’t read far enough to see it.
It would be poetic justice, irony or whatever term you want to use, if, while evaluating their contributions, Target elects to shut off funding of GLBT events, such as the pride fest or maybe they should avoid offending people that may hate the Guthrie and not donate to it, either! In fact, as a Target stockholder, I have suggested same to Mr. Steinhafel and Target’s BoD.
In my daily routine, I sell to to the SMB market and based on what I’m hearing, we may have a large number of companies that will flee Minnesota, if a demonrat gets elected governor. In fact, many of our anchor employers have built facilities in more business friendly states, so I also wouldn’t be surprised to hear of one of them moving their corporate HQ to one of those facilities.
I see what happend now, you typed in “What percentage of the population is Homosexual?” clicked on the first link that came up and quoted the first agreeable stat you found.
In your defense, I myself neglected the end of the same article, which clarified that most experts say that 10% or less of the population is gay. The thesis statement of the article is that people tend to overestimate the percentage of gay people. The other answers were incorrect, but thanks for playing, folks.
“You, however, were not the one I expected.”
I appreciate the compliment, but I’m not surprized. I’m pretty much a hack when it comes to stats and numbers.
quoted the first agreeable stat you found.
No, I quoted the first stat I found from a semi-reliable polling agency.
If you’re looking to start a career as a clairvoyant, don’t quit your day job.
The other answers were incorrect
Gallup says 2-3%; the National GL Task Force says 3-8%.
Or were those not the ones you were saying were incorrect?
“The other answers were incorrect”
I wasn’t referring to your guests’ various attempts at deconstructing the article’s thesis. I don’t pretend to know how many people are gay, and frankly I don’t care. It doesn’t matter from an ethical perspective and it doesn’t even matter from a strategic perspective.
p.s. You just misquoted the article again. The Gallup poll said 21-22%, not 2-3%.
Oops. My bad, I did transpose two sources in my head.
It wasn’t Gallup. It was the “Family Research Report”.
I have to say I’m watching with some amusement all this discussion about the percentage of gays in the population, since that’s one of the traditional examples used in how to accurately report statistics in most graduate level psychology programs. And it’s not a pretty discussion when you get into the nitty gritty of the research on the research, especially in the area of sexuality.
Even discounting hacks like Kinsey who had an axe to grind (and an ego to satisfy), the problem is that there’s a well-known disconnect between what folks are willing to report even anonymously and reality.
The reality of the situation is that exclusive homosexuality is at the level of noise in the population: the number who report being exclusively homosexual is just about at the level of the number of folks who lie for the heck of it on these surveys.
The best, most accurate and controlled numbers from the research papers I’ve seen has the number at about 1-1.5% for females and about 2-2.5% for males of exclusive homosexuals. The error bars on those numbers being about the same size as the numbers. If you include bisexuals in the “homosexual” population the numbers go up, but are still less than 4%. The caveat is that I stopped following this about a decade ago, so my numbers might be a bit out of date.
my numbers might be a bit out of date
Absolutely. Creating homosexuals is a growth industry in America. Public schools are the formost incubator.
AB, let’s talk about the ethical point of view. Where do YOU draw the limit on ethics? Do you view it as ethical to extend legal marriage to:
1) Gays?
2) Cousins?
3) Polygamists?
4) Bestiality?
5) Automatons?
6) Children?
I’m just curious as to why you view it as imperative to extend the idea of marriage to one of those groups and not all of them. Why do you support the idea of ANY restrictions on marriage?
I’m not saying this to be sarcastic, I’m just curious to see how you can rationalize the traditional justification for gay marriage (consenting adults!) and not similarly justify things like polygamy.
Nerd,
I oppose gay marriage – but I support civil unions and contracts.
I won’t pretend either to have airtight logic (also to care all that much) but to answer your questions:
1) Gays? – Gays, being law-abiding Americans in about the same proportion as the rest of us, being over 18 and of sound mind and body, should be able to sign contracts – including, in theory, a contract that ties a couple together.
2) Cousins? – There is a public health case against this; procreation among cousins is fraught with medical risks. Like drunk driving, it’s something I suspect government can legitimately regulate; I’m no lawyer, but I imagine that there has to be some theory of contract law that says it’s bad practice to allow contracts that have a very reasonable expectation of causing harm (to the future generation, in this case)
3) Polygamists? – This one is trickier. I have no quick answer on that one. Perhaps the law requires that “marriage” be an exclusive contract? I’m no lawyer.
4) Bestiality? – Animals can’t sign contracts.
5) Automatons? – Machines dont’ have standing to sign contracts.
6) Children? – Ditto children.
Personally, I agree Mitch. It’s a new relationship that’s now being requested, so I prefer to call it something else, but in that sense I’m a conservative. I support civil unions for that reason.
As to cousins, could not your logic be used to prevent those with AIDS marrying non-HIV positive folks? And at what point do you limit the actions of consenting adults?
It’s interesting that you view marriage as a contractual state rather than a right you conservative Neanderthal! But in that sense your view differs from the left, who view marriage as an individual human right or the extensions they’re requesting wouldn’t make sense.
But my question was for AB, trying to see how a leftist views the issues and how one can rationalize the differences between gay marriage and polygamy, for instance. The commonly expressed “reasoning” for gay marriage is very weak and inconsistent and my purpose was to try and ascertain how far down the slippery slope AB and other liberals are willing to go given how much they detest the idea of polygamy that they associate with conservatives as just one example.
It’s a discussion worth having, and I’d prefer a discussion rather than an argument, but given the irrational heat from most gay marriage activists I doubt I’ll get it.
A strictly libertarian response to the questions is to allow them all as personal choice and to insist that the state not sanction marriage.