Clinton might weigh ’16 presidential bid

CHARLES

BABINGTON

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rod­ham Clinton’s embrace of gay mar­riage Mon­day sig­nals she may be seri­ously weigh­ing a 2016 pres­i­den­tial run and try­ing to avoid the type of late-to-the-party cau­tion that hurt her first bid.

Her chief Demo­c­ra­tic rivals endorsed same-sex mar­riage as much as seven years ago, and it’s widely pop­u­lar with Demo­c­ra­tic and inde­pen­dent voters.

By sup­port­ing gay mar­riage a full two years before the next pres­i­den­tial pri­mary warms up, Clin­ton may ren­der the issue largely set­tled among Democ­rats, should she decide to run.

But things could be vastly dif­fer­ent in the Novem­ber 2016 gen­eral elec­tion, regard­less who wins the Demo­c­ra­tic nom­i­na­tion. That nom­i­nee is vir­tu­ally cer­tain to sup­port same-sex mar­riage, whereas there’s a strong pos­si­bil­ity the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee will not.

That could be a prob­lem for the GOP nom­i­nee if same-sex mar­riage becomes a promi­nent issue.

A poll released Mon­day shows a dra­matic shift in atti­tudes about legal­iz­ing gay mar­riage, with 58 per­cent of Amer­i­cans now sup­port­ing it.

Three years ago, the fig­ure was 47 per­cent, the ABC News/Washington Post poll reported.

Par­ti­san break­downs show why it’s vir­tu­ally essen­tial for a Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial hope­ful to sup­port same-sex mar­riage, and why it’s dif­fi­cult for GOP con­tenders to do the same.

Seventy-two per­cent of Democ­rats, 62 per­cent of inde­pen­dents and 34 per­cent of Repub­li­cans sup­port same-sex mar­riage, the ABC-Post poll found. Unless Repub­li­cans’ opin­ions change sig­nif­i­cantly in the next two years, a GOP pres­i­den­tial hope­ful may strug­gle to win the nom­i­na­tion with­out oppos­ing gay mar­riage, even if the posi­tion causes prob­lems in the Novem­ber gen­eral election.

For those who lived “through the long years of the civil rights and women’s rights move­ments, the speed with which more and more peo­ple have come to embrace the dig­nity and equal­ity of LGBT Amer­i­cans has been breath­tak­ing and inspir­ing,” Clin­ton said in a six-minute video, refer­ring to les­bian, gay, bisex­ual and trans­gen­der persons.

In the video, released by the gay rights advo­cacy group Human Rights Cam­paign, Clin­ton says gays and les­bians are “full and equal cit­i­zens and deserve the rights of citizenship.”

“That includes mar­riage,” she says, adding that she backs gay mar­riage both “per­son­ally and as a mat­ter of pol­icy and law.”

Clin­ton recently stepped down as sec­re­tary of State, free­ing her to talk more openly about U.S. domes­tic polit­i­cal matters.

Posted by AP News on Mar 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.