By Michael from Eyesonobama.com:
The surprise IA state Supreme Court ruling last week means that same-sex marriages could begin there in a few weeks. But, further down the road, this ruling will also mean that the most religious and closed-in GOP candidates might come out on top of the 2012 Iowa caucuses...and that would be a shot of bad news for the national Republican Party.
Not to sound too much like a naturally-tweaking Chicagoan, but...the last time I heard news this good coming out of Iowa, it had to be something related to the whole "If you build it, he will come" fake baseball myth-making around the classic "Field of Dreams" film.
But, today the reality isn’t fiction about long-gone sports stars suddenly materializing out of cornfields...it’s about the defiantly purple-populist, corn-fed state to the west of my hometown suddenly – by twists and turns and at-distance torqued leverage – making it that much more difficult for the already-stumbling national GOP to end up with much of a viable national candidate in the 2012 Presidential election. And let me explain why...
Once upon a time – actually, just back in 1998 – an Iowa state law was enacted that defined marriage as only being between a man and a woman. A challenge to this ruling arose and intensified in 2005; this legal challenge was mostly centered in the state’s Polk County, the county seat of which is Des Moines, which is also the state capital, the most populous city in Iowa, and home to its – accordingly – most diverse and even semi-cosmopolitan populace. Two years later, a state judge ruled that the 1998 marriage law was unconstitutional.
That ruling, in 2007, seemed about to make Des Moines a marriage Mecca for same-sex couples (like San Francisco, Hawaii, New Paltz, NY, or Cambridge, MA)...but the judge who set aside the ’98 law immediately also said that the state’s Supreme Court should have a chance to make a more complete ruling.
Flash forward to last week...and the breaking news: "If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded," the Iowa Supreme Court said, agreeing that the 1998 law was indeed unconstitutional.
So...hooray for the same-sex couples in IA, right? (As well as perhaps good news for those in much else of the Midwest, since the state is apparently not going to require residency to issue marriage licenses.) Yes, absolutely – anything that broadens the rights of this oft-persecuted group is something that I – and nearly all true progressives – will enthusiastically cheer. Legal same-sex weddings should begin in IA by late April or early May.
But this move also should send shudders of "Oh man, this is SO turning out to not be our decade" dread through the more thoughtful elements of the national leadership of the Republican Party. (And, by the way, whoever that phrase actually describes, please feel free to eventually stand up and try to shout down the Steele-Limbaugh-Palin-Boehner-Beck near-morons currently running things over there.)
You see, imagine your way forward to, say, the late months of 2011, where, in deep preparation for the Iowa caucuses – the first major electoral event in nominating Presidential candidates – the wide-open GOP field is scattered across the Hawkeye State. And, in the face of this then-sure-to-be-still-controversial law, you will see the more conservative, religious, and core-pandering elements of the elephants openly and loudly decrying this state Supreme Court decision as they campaign for their party’s nomination. Those damn gays!, they will inveigle; those liberal, activist judges!
These sorts of attacks will likely both A) Alienate many moderate and independent voters everywhere who happen to get an eye- or earful of this type of crap (as they decide that these GOP zealots apparently still care more about a small group of people’s bedrooms than they do about the majority’s pocketbooks and kitchen tables) and B) Stir up semi-rabid support among the (still extant) core base of GOP voters in IA...so that the winner (or maybe the strong second-placer) of the important first Republican caucus is nearly certain to be someone like Huckabee, Palin, or even a more out-there "traditional values" candidate(a la Brownback or Tancredo in ‘08)...while the perhaps more balanced figures like Romney (who, frankly, only seems balanced in comparison AND depending upon which way the polls are blowing or where he is campaigning) or Jindal or Huntsman (the UT Governor) or Crist or even Gingrich get demoted to scrambling to win or place second in New Hampshire or having to drop completely out of the race. (This was the major flaw with Giuliani’s ’08 "FL or bust" strategy – too many other candidates picked up momentum by winning or doing unexpectedly well in early contests and swamped right over Rudy’s supposed electoral "firewall" in the Sunshine State.)
So, this scenario may well end up giving the GOP an eventual candidate who will be their equivalent of McGovern, ’72 (and no disrespect meant to the former Senator from SD – one of the most decent men in politics of the last half-century): Someone chosen by the most extreme elements of the party who will not play well (at all!) in those burgeoning purple states (such as VA, PA, MT, IA, maybe the Dakotas and NC, perhaps even TX) or the truly independent ones (like CO, NM, NV, and even FL and OH). Put it all together, and it just makes it that much harder for the Republicans to effectively challenge President Obama in 2012.
Location-wise and timing-wise, it seems that there could not be a worse place for this to be happening for the GOP than in Iowa in the run-up to the next Presidential election.
And, returning for a moment to the whole fantasy-driven "Field of Dreams" world, it makes me joyously recall these famous quotes from the movie: "Is this heaven?" "No, it’s Iowa." Well, it sure seems pretty heaven-like to me now...
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