Tuesday, July 05, 2011

DFER role in gay marriage bill

Adding on to my last email, a friend wrote this about DFER's role in getting the gay marriage bill passed in NY.  It's a very important added benefit of what we do at DFER: the Dems we support tend to be smart, forward-thinking and courageous, so when we help them get elected, in addition to being good on our issue, they are also likely to be good on other important issues (and more likely to be moderates who can reach across the aisle – what a novel thought! – to reach compromises with Reps):

 

The gay marriage victory affirms the importance of DFER.

 

The gay community spent a TON of money before this year.  They gave the senate dems $1M just to help them take the majority.  Then they spent a ton on lobbyists too.  The problem was they didn't have the votes or a strong Gov, and the Reps are so political that not one of them would vote to give the Dems a victory last year, so they all voted no, as did some scared Dems that weren't taking a hard vote for a losing bill, and it went down.

 

This year, a strong Gov and DFER-like cash helped convince enough Reps that they had their backs if and when the Conservative Party went nuts (which they did).

 

All the Dems of course held (and the gay money helped get rid of a few Dem no votes via primaries; and a few more Dem no's became yes's after they saw that happen), and viola.

 

So go DFER.

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