Hurricane Sandy, Climate Change and Presidential Politics: 2016 Starts Now
When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, same-sex marriage was a loser. Whatever his own views, he knew supporting marriage equality would hurt him in the general election, and wouldn’t help him in the primaries. And so he — like Hillary Clinton, and like every previous serious contender for either party’s presidential nomination — declined to do so.
With Obama’s victory in 2008 the Democratic calculus changed. Presidential hopefuls knew that Obama would be the nominee in 2012, and set their eyes on 2016. And it didn’t take a psychic to see that given long-term polling trends no Democrat could win the party nomination in 2016 without supporting marriage equality.
And so the party’s most ambitious politicians, particularly those outside the Obama administration, started getting their ducks in a row. Both New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Maryland governor Martin O’Malley made marriage equality a priority during their current terms of office, with Cuomo presiding over the passage of a
With Obama’s victory in 2008 the Democratic calculus changed. Presidential hopefuls knew that Obama would be the nominee in 2012, and set their eyes on 2016. And it didn’t take a psychic to see that given long-term polling trends no Democrat could win the party nomination in 2016 without supporting marriage equality.
And so the party’s most ambitious politicians, particularly those outside the Obama administration, started getting their ducks in a row. Both New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Maryland governor Martin O’Malley made marriage equality a priority during their current terms of office, with Cuomo presiding over the passage of a