ThinkProgress: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has emerged as one of the Senate’s most vocal opponents of granting immigration rights to bi-national same-sex couples. But his wife said Monday that she expects his anti-LGBT views to be out of the mainstream even in his party by 2016.And this is what the whole rebranding effort has devolved into:”The GOP’s going to come around to your point of view any time now — just you wait! — so go ahead and vote for us now.” The Republican Party is slowly becoming rebranded as the party who are just about to stop being so stupid and hateful. Unfortunately for all the talk, there’s very little evidence that this is the case.
McCain, who fiercely opposed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal in 2010 and voted against adding LGBT protections to the federal hate crime law. said in March that he doubts he’ll ever change his strong opposition to same-sex marriage.
Cindy McCain, his wife of 33 years, said at a Monday fundraiser for the anti-bullying Trevor Project that she believed the Republican Party would come to support legal equality for same-sex couples over the next three years: “You’re going to see a major turn. By the next presidential election I think this will be an issue that will be very much agreed on by both parties.” She added that she believes even her husband will come around, noting that the Senator “hears from his own daughters and his own children and from me a little bit about this.”
Ed Kilgore has a good post up about the rebranding effort, but it doesn’t lend itself to quoting — just go read it. The gist of it is that the party isn’t going to make any headway until it stops listening to people who think rebranding — minus any actual change — is all the party needs to do. They seem to think being the party of haters and hater-enablers is just fine — so long as you get people to pay attention to enablers like Cindy, while haters like John continue to do all the damage they want, just like always.
[photo by ronnie44052]
