“At the Democratic Convention, an Emphasis on Social Issues”

By Linda María González Paz.-

On Monday, September 3rd. Michelle Obama in North Carolina, was one of the main speakers in a Democratic National Convention, she was talking about her support of same-sex marriage by giving entire backup to those people, and she express herself in this words: “If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love, then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American dream.” When she express herself, most of the democrats support her, because last year Barack Obama was against this management, but this year he changed his mind, and support them, and it is also as my personal opinion convenience for him, because he can get more votes from those “who are in love” (as they call them).

After all Democrats have emphasize the importance of take care of social issues in the US, because the article explains that the Republican party is focused in economic issues, because Democrats couldn’t handle it that well, in the other hand, Democrats are supporting ideas of social issues, because they know it will be better for them strategically using these issues based on the timing of his personal platform announcement. It is also becoming increasingly apparent throughout this campaign that the democrats are targeting particular demographics of voters through their focus on social issues, for example: gay marriage to target LGBT (lesbian, gays, bisexual, transsexual) community, immigration reform to target Latinos and healthcare to target inner-city families. They are making promises to try and attract the different voters, but whether the promises will be kept is a point of contention.

When Obama´s first rejection of same-sex marriage was approved, wasn´t the right decision, because if he had been a supporter of gay marriage from the start, this would not be new news. It is likely that Obama is saying that he is pro gay-marriage just to attract and keep voters- the younger population, the students, the LGBT population.

Obama recognizes and knows well his followers. His administration knows that taking a stance on a contentious issue like gay-marriage is risky, “Democrats were taking a gamble in focusing on divisive social issues” but they must believe that the older and more conservative voters they lose to this will not outweigh the voters that they will gain.

While many Republicans do vote this way, based on social issues, that is not how they have been campaigning so far for this election. At the Republican National Convention, huge emphasis was put on the broken economy and the increasing national debt. It could be argued that Republicans are playing a blame game and only emphasizing the failures of the Democratic party rather than advertizing their own ideas, with the exception of Paul Ryan, who has proposed a very brave economic recovery plan. However, it is possible that the Democrats are not addressing the economy and are distracting voters with social issue talk for the same reason. The parties are fighting with different tools at this point in the election, and the voters will ultimately decide whether the economy or the social issues are more important.

Source: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/at-the-democratic-convention-an-emphasis-on-social-issues/?hp