10/15/2004: "Kerry and Mary Cheney: what's the damage?"

Blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt asks the following blogger symposium question on his site: "How deep a hole have John Kerry, Mary Beth Cahill and the Edwards dug for themselves? How lasting the damage?" The hole to which Hugh refers is the one labeled "Mary Cheney," and has to do with Kerry's gratuitous mention of the vice-president's daughter in Wednesday's debate.

Asked whether sexual orientation is a choice, Kerry replied, ""We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as." It isn't the answer to the question ("no") that's caused Lynne Cheney, Mary's mother, to say that Kerry is "not a good man," it's the fact that Mary's name was brought up at all. Candidates' children are supposed to be off limits in political campaigns, but Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, compounded the error by calling Mary Cheney "fair game" in a post-debate spin session. Then John Edwards' wife Elizabeth further compounded the error by claiming that the Cheneys' disgust at having their daughter dragged into the campaign indicated that they were ashamed of her, when in fact they have repeatedly made plain that they are anything but. So what's going on with the Kerry campaign and homosexuality?

First, I think that those such as Slate political blogger Mickey Kaus who say this was an attempt to split the "homophobe" vote away from Bush are off-base. Kaus (an excellent commentator, by the way) contends, "There must be some Machiavellian strategy behind the Democratic urge to keep bringing this up�most likely it's a poll-tested attempt to cost Bush and Cheney the votes of demographic groups (like Reagan Dems, or fundamentalists) who are hostile to homosexuality or gay culture or who just don't want to have to think about it." While there may be some slight leakage from Bush, I doubt that it's enough to take the risk of alienating core Democratic constituencies.

What I think is more likely is that Kerry's reference to Mary Cheney was a "PFLAG moment." For those who don't recognize the acronym, it stands for Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (that should make it PFFLAG, but whatever). It's an organization dedicated to the argument that one can only have two attitudes toward gays: either you approve of their lifestyle, and thus can be said to love them, or you disapprove of their lifestyle, in which case you're a gay-basher who (if you have a gay child) can't really love them. Taking that as Kerry's grid, bringing up Mary Cheney would be calculated to send this message: "Because Bush is against gay rights (in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, etc.), that means he must think that homosexuality is not just as good as heterosexuality, which in turn means that he must be a gay-hating homophobe, and here's a concrete example right in his own White House family of someone he hates. What kind of man hates those close to him just because of their sexual orientation? One you wouldn't want to vote for." I think that message was aimed at moderate, undecided voters who don't like the idea of either intolerance or hypocrisy regarding homosexuality. The hope was to make dents in favorable opinions of Bush as a person as well as politician. If successfully done, it would have resulted in some inroads among centrists while also pleasing Kerry's base.

I think that's what the strategy was. I also think that Kerry carried it through incompetently not to mention offensively. I don't think he was expecting to get the question in the form that it came, and when it did he just went on autopilot so that a gambit meant to communicate one message wound up saying something completely different. (I just heard Mort Kondracke of Roll Call say basically the same thing as Kaus, and they aren't the only ones who heard it that way.)

So back to Hugh's question: how big a hole, how much impact? Depends on whether the blogosphere and media such as Fox News and talk radio keep it alive (I assume the mainstream media has already moved on). The longer the legs, the more opportunity for those same folks Kerry was trying to appeal to to decide that he's a mean-spirited politician who will do anything and hurt anyone to win. That's important because voting for president isn't simply about whose policy proposals you agree with, it's also about who you like as the public face of America and who you trust to be in charge of the national security of the country. As close as this election is supposed to be, anything that raises questions about the character of either candidate can potentially make a significant difference. This is one of those questions.

Replies: 5 Comments

on Friday, October 15th, Phillipa B. said

The thing that scares me about Dick Cheney is that I have never seen him to be politically moved by anything I would call "good." I have seen motivated by a desire for power, money, and control over others. Cheney himself has mentioned how proud he is of his daughter, and has used her in this way to make it clear that he does not embrace at all the attitude of the Bush administration toward gays (one of understated disapproval). The republicans has marginalized the Log Cabin party, a coalition made up of Republican gays.

The gay lifestyle is one that Athanasius has always viewed as a choice and not a "natural" thing at all and I agree with him on that. I find it amusing, however, that he is now using mention of Cheney's daughter as another reason Kerry is unfit to be president.
Candidates children are off limits in a campaign, because they do not deserve to be maligned in order to score political points. Kerry only said positive things about Mary Cheney, so get a life, Ath, this is a tempest in a teapot.

on Friday, October 15th, Athanasius said

Actually, Kerry said nothing positive about Mary Cheney--he simply put words in her mouth. It was John Edwards that had something positive about the Cheney family.

As to the lifestyle, that most definitely is a choice. The question asked was about sexual orientation. The correct answer to that, as even George Bush knew enough to say, is we don't know. I've said I think it's a complex combination of genes and environment, but in truth there is still a great deal about it that we don't know.

Unfit for president: this seems to be the week for people reading stuff into my writing. I nowhere say that his answer makes Kerry unfit. I was doing political analysis here, not expressing a candidate preference. I think he did a bad job with the answer, and that his bad job may effect how some people view him, even enough to not vote for him (whether that means they'll vote for Bush is an entirely different question).

Cheney: that's certainly a valid opinion. I should note, however, that he doesn't trot his daughter out to score gratuitous points. Every time I've ever heard him talk about her was in answer to a question someone asked him. Note how in the debate he simply thanked Edwards for his comments, and didn't use the family reference as a launching pad to make political points. As for candidates' children, they are off-limits because they aren't running for anything. They aren't supposed to be brought up by the opposition at all, much less used as a prop to make a point that could be made without mentioning them.

Log Cabin: I think they've marginalized themselves. They used to be a group within the GOP that stood for gay rights, yes, but lots of other issues as well. This year, they've made it plain that they've gone single issue, the FMA. In a year when 70% of the electorate supports the amendment's purpose (if not it's passage at this time), that's not a smart way to maximize your influence.

Tempest: perhaps so. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right. But I also wouldn't be surprised if this has an effect like the Swift Boat ads (ignored by the MSM as no big deal until it became obvious that it was), and the Cheney reference the one that we look back on as the most important gaffe of this debate year (like Ford on Poland or Dukakis' freeze on capital punishment).

on Friday, October 15th, Debbie said

If Kerry did bring Cheney's daughter into the debate, then that was very poor taste on his part, (a low blow). Just because Cheney is in politics doesn't mean that he isn't a father. Of course he loves his daughter. That doesn't mean he has to like what she does or how she lives her life.
Kerry has been a snake in the grass ever since this he entered into politics and he will always be one. I don't care who wrote his speech or even the answers that he was to use in the debates, the outcome is that Kerry is a jerk.
I particularly don't go along with the homosexuality lifestyle and don't think it is right but then again it is not me who has to answer for what they do. If everyone would just treat other people as they would like to be treated then this issue wouldn't be a problem. Why do people worry about what other people do in the privacy of their own home.
If that is the lifestyle that homosexuals what then let them have it. I do wish they wouldn't keep throwing it up in the heterosexuals faces.
I'll be so glad when the elections are over in November and Kerry can go back to the ketsup factory or whatever his wife tells him to do.

on Saturday, October 16th, ctob said

I believe you are right about the PFLAG thing. In fact I will go so far as to say they believe that the PFLAG view is completely and obviously true and can't see how reasonable people wouldn't see it that way.

One of your commentators is correct about the biology of "choice". Unfortunately the Dems have completely bought into an assumption that there is some Gay gene. If were to say to them "Fine, where does this gene reside, what protein does it produce, and what does that protein do?" they would probably call you a bigot.

on Saturday, October 16th, Michael Gallaugher said

Personally, I don't think this issue will even register with voters, not because I find it a non-issue, but because the people who care about social graces in a President are on Bush's side already. By now the people who will vote for Kerry's know him well enough.

Two weeks man, almost there.