But the items on the Gay agenda-- gay marriage, gays in military, Scouts, are expressly antithetical to 80% of Republicans.
Racicot can't be trying to get lesbian votes, which have got to be 99% Democrat, and forever will be. That leaves gay men, which constitute roughly 2% of the male population. If the GOP were to embrace the gay male population what would it get? Maybe changing 10%, going from 90% to 80% Democrat. To try to get the votes of 0.1% of the population, the GOP must first stick the gay agenda thumb in the eye of 80% of their constituents.
Since that makes no sense, it is more likely that Racicot is trying to make the GOP appear more "inclusive" to the media, in a vain attempt to get them to hate Republicans less. Even more likely, Racicot is probably trying to make Racicot appear more inclusive, so he will get Strange New Respect from the media (e.g. a favorable piece in the "Style" section of the Washington Post). That way, he and the missus will get invited to better parties in Georgetown.
One thing Democrats are very good at doing is building "victim classes" and convincing them that the Democrats are offering a sound means to achieve their claimed goals. What Republicans need to do is recognize the differences between claimed goals and real goals and, where the claimed goals are reasonable (as they often are) offer alternative and better means to achieve those same goals without the side-effects (which are in fact the Democrats' motivation).
Recent history shows that this is exactly what the GOP plans to do to conservatives--stick us in the eye--because we're a captive audience. "Where are we going to go," they say, and then they hint that any third party attempts or sitting out an election will elect the "worse Democrat." Funny thing is the Democrat does pretty much the same stuff as our wonderfully "moderate" GOP, only the tempo changes a bit.
Good summary. Sure wish the GOP could figure out this simple equation.
One problem I've not seen addressed is that when the Democrats manage to paint a "victim group", not only do they capture the votes of that group, but they also usually capture the votes of a lot of "useful idiots" who are, or want to feel, sympathetic to the perceived hardships of that group.
Gays are not a terribly large portion of the voting populace, but people who are, to some measure, "gay sympathizers" are. One key thing to recognize, though, is that in many cases the sympathizers accept the stated agenda of some advocacy groups but would oppose the real agenda if they knew it.
To use a Second-Amendment analogy:
in many places, the Democrats could reasonably argue that there are too many shootings by criminals.The proper Republican response to the Democrats' complaints about crime is not to ignore them, but rather to come up with an alternative method for reducing crime. Likewise, the Republicans should figure out ways to satisfy those claimed goals of gay activists that happen to be reasonable. For example, allowing gays (and everyone else) to carry concealed weapons will almost certainly discourage gay-bashing much more effectively than "hate-crime" laws. It thus offers a solution to a claimed (and in many cases exaggerated) problem which, unlike the Democrats' "solutions", does not favor the liberal agenda.Claimed goal: reduce number of shootings by criminals [quite reasonable]
Real goal: disarm the populace
Super-secret subgoal: increase crime
Proposed action: Introduce more restrictive gun legislation
Republicans have a tricky course to navigate. I think if they can do it well, though, it could really pay off.