Obama Campaign Reaches Out To Gay Georgians
Can a Touch of Pink Help Turn Ga. Blue?
Southern Voice
By Matt Schafer
August 15, 2008

Georgia’s electoral votes haven’t gone to a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992, but some believe this is the year Georgia could turn blue.

George W. Bush handily won Georgia’s 13 electoral college votes in the past two presidential elections. Republicans have also won most statewide races in Georgia since Gov. Sonny Perdue defeated Roy Barnes in 2002, giving Georgia the reputation as a red state stronghold.

But some believe the historic Democratic candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama — combined with a strong Libertarian contender from Georgia, Bob Barr, and the less dynamic campaign styling of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain — could tilt the state from red to blue. And to get there, Obama is counting on a bit of pink by openly courting gay Georgia voters like no other presidential candidate has before.

"You don't want to take anyone for granted. You want to let everyone know that their vote counts, that you care about their issues and that you're listening,” said Caroline Adelman, communications director for Obama’s Georgia campaign, in an interview this week at the campaign’s recently opened office on Spring Street.

The Atlanta office serves as headquarters for the Democratic hopeful’s Georgia efforts and is one of nine Obama campaign offices around the state. Obama’s Georgia plans also include hiring a gay outreach coordinator for the state, Adelman said.

“This is something we’ve never seen in Georgia before,” said Don George, a longtime gay activist and current Obama supporter who volunteered for Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992.

At the peak of Clinton’s first campaign, George estimated there were 300 gay volunteers working the state, but their efforts were not nearly as organized or accepted as they are in Obama’s campaign.

“When we did it in ’92, it was through the [national] Human Rights Campaign. We tried to start working out of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters on Spring Street, and I don’t think they even gave us any space,” George said. Instead, gay volunteers ended up working out of a house in Decatur without official recognition from state party officials.

In contrast, openly gay staffers and volunteers are mixed at every level of the Obama campaign. Steve Hildebrand is the openly gay deputy national campaign Kyle Bailey (left) and other gay Obama supporters gathered Tuesday at Manuel’s Tavern. (Photo by Matt Schafer) director. Constituency Director Brian Bond and Dave Noble, director of LGBT issues, are both members of the gay Stonewall Democrats. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only open lesbian in Congress, recently joined the Obama campaign as co-chair of his national gay leadership and policy committee after serving on a similar committee for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Locally, former Georgia Equality political director Kyle Bailey serves on Obama’ national LGBT steering committee and is organizing an informal group of two-dozen volunteers in Atlanta. His group is working to register and motivate voters in places like Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Ansley Mall, Blake’s on the Park and other gay establishments.

“We came up with a list of 40 to 50 things people can do aside from donating money,” Bailey said.

REPUBLICANS & ‘OBAMICANS’

Like Obama’s stands on gay issues, his outreach to and support from gay Georgia voters is unmatched in the McCain campaign.

“In Georgia, as far as McCain goes, people are making up their own mind about it,” said Jamie Ensley, president of the Georgia chapter of the gay Log Cabin Republicans. “I get a lot of phone calls and emails from our members asking if we have made an endorsement and we haven’t. We’re waiting for the national LCR to make an endorsement and then we’ll follow them.”

Ensley said a number of gay Republicans are drawn to Obama for his stance on gay issues. “We call them Obamicans,” he joked.

While McCain draws less support from Christian conservatives than Bush and has previously opposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, he and Obama are diametrically opposed on many gay issues.

Neither candidate supports allowing gays to marry. But Obama backs civil unions, repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, overturning the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and allowing gays to adopt, among other issues. McCain takes the opposite stand on all of those issues.

“I think Obama’s taken a very strong positions on behalf of the GLBT community,” Bailey said. “From the start, he was one of the candidates to support a complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, not just the definition of marriage, but the part that keeps states from recognizing marriages from other states.”

INSPIRING VOTERS

Obama’s campaign is counting on his impassioned speeches and promises of bringing change to Washington to pull in unregistered voters, and increase energy in the electorate, including Atlanta gay voters like Michelle Alexander and her partner.

“This is probably one of the first political campaigns I’ve ever gotten involved in,” said Alexander, 34, who saw Obama speak last year.

“I didn’t get politically involved or [understand] why I should get politically involved until I saw Barack at Georgia Tech last fall,” Alexander said. “At first I think it was because he was just so charismatic and you can sit and listen to him for hours. Then as I followed the campaign I saw the consistency of his character.”

Joseph Mills, 29, a gay East Atlanta voter, considers himself an independent, and in 2004 chose George W. Bush over John Kerry. He described himself a fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Mills said he is supporting Obama because of “the idea of completely changing the way that America looks at leadership, maybe getting away from the idea that only white men can be president, maybe America is getting closer to the idea of equality,” he said.

Joe Maxell, 23, of Midtown routinely ignores politics but this year finds himself donating to the campaign, and working with Bailey, George and other gay volunteers to help get out the vote for Obama.

“Most of the time I don’t watch anything to do with politics. Barack impressed me when he told an African-American church that they need to support their gay brothers,” Maxwell said. “I feel he doesn’t mind pushing the limit to get his point out there.”

CAN HE WIN?

Obama’s strategy relies heavily on new voter registration and unprecedented turnout in two constituencies in which Obama is the clear favorite — youth and African Americans. Political analysts consider the expected flood of votes from people who typically ignore politics a wave that could wash Georgia blue.

Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia in Athens, thinks the Obama wave must turn into a “perfect storm” before Georgia goes Obama on Nov. 4.

“I think there are two or three things that would have to happen in order for Obama to win this state.” Bullock said. “There would have to be large black turnout. …But I don’t think you can boost black turnout enough to win just by that that. So the other thing Obama has to do is attract a much larger percentage of the white vote than even Georgians like Mark Taylor have gotten.”

In 2002, former Gov. Roy Barnes took 90 percent of the African-American vote, but had only 31 percent of the white vote, Bullock said. Barnes lost that election 46 percent to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s 51 percent.

“[Obama] needs to get a share of the white vote,” Bullock said. “The rule of thumb used to be in Georgia that you needed 90 percent among from black voters and 40 percent among of the white vote to win as a Democrat.”

In 1992, Clinton beat George Bush by just 13,714 votes, but still didn’t have a majority of votes because Independent candidate Ross Perot took 300,000 votes. Bullock, and a number of other pundits, believes if Obama is to win, Libertarian Bob Barr needs to pull in around 5 percent of the vote, largely at Republican expense.

“You have to figure that most of Bob Barr’s votes are going to come from whites,” Bullock said. “So if Bob Barr runs well and takes a good percentage of votes, it will primarily be white votes, then that’s the perfect storm for Obama.”

GAY IMPACT

Georgia is home to approximately 280,000 gay, lesbian or bisexual adults, according to a 2006 analysis of U.S. Census figures by UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy, and many activists think the true number is much higher.

While gay voter turnout is difficult to measure, any population of that size can play a role in a close election.

“If it’s close enough, than it can make a difference,” Bullock said. “An energized gay community could help [Obama] gain support in the white community, and going back as far as 2002, Democrats have not done well there.”

George and other gay Obama supporters were more optimistic.

“If 100 percent of the gay people in Georgia turn out to vote, Obama will win,” George said.

But as excited as George, Bailey and other Georgia Democrats are about supporting Obama, the state’s Republicans are just as excited about opposing him. Sue Everhart, chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said she and her staff are often working seven days a week to energize GOP voters.

“I think it might be a little tighter race than say for Bush in ’04, but one thing it has done for us is it has made our people realize they have to work harder,” Everhart said.

“I don’t intend to be the first woman elected chairman of Georgia and not to deliver Georgia and its 13 electoral votes to a Republican,” she added.

Obama’s campaign is equally resolute.

“We’re not ceding anything just because [Georgia] has been a traditional Republican stronghold. We’re just going everywhere,” Adelman said.