I'll tell you, Ronnie. And this is the absolute truth. I worked in funeral service in NYC for 25 years. There are a number of gay men in that field for whatever the reason. And more than a few of them are conservative by nature. To think that they're all flaming liberals is to unfairly stereotype them. The GOP is nuts for not going after their vote by making nice.
Oh I would absolutely agree. But it's somewhat the same thing with Hispanics: You may agree with the GOP on fiscal policies and taxes and on foreign policy, but if said party spits on your face as an enemy because of who you are, well how can you still vote for them?
Some (Hispanics and Gays) still do anyway, but regardless they're pissing away votes that could be theirs if indeed they played nice and actually tried to engage them. Not demonize them.
I've told this story before but I'll repeat it: After Brown v. Board of Education in 1955, the Democratic Party in '56 (an election year) were split on ideological and regional grounds and more or less ignored it in their DNC platform that year.
Vice-President Nixon after that decision saw what he perceived as a magical opening for the Republicans to split the Democrats by having the GOP wholly endorse the Brown decision. And there was logic to this approach, since the GOP were nearly still nonexistent in the South, what votes are they losing down there anyway? It would also potentially swing the black vote back to the Republicans as they had from Lincoln up to 1932. (In fact Ike twice had the black vote in the 40%s, Dr. King even endorsed him in '56.)
But his party told him he was smoking some good shit. One Senator quipped "Dick, you mean I'll get three more Negro votes? Oh joy!"
And thus that opening wasn't exploited. I always wonder what if they had followed Nixon's scheme?
