Speaker Boehner Making Money Hand Over Fist For Carl DeMaio

A few weeks ago, the Family Research Council and National Organization for Marriage, fired off an open letter to Speaker Boehner asking him to stop supporting pro-gay House candidates Carl DeMaio and Richard Tisei and Senate candidate Monica Wehby. (DeMaio and Tisei are gay; Wehby is just from Oregon.)

Boehner declined the invitation.

Speaker John Boehner vowed last year that he’d back gay GOP candidates. Now, he’s making good on his word.

The Ohio Republican is heading to California this week, where he’ll raise cash for openly gay Republican candidate Carl DeMaio in defiance of several conservative groups.

Boehner’s trip to the Golden State marks the second leg of his fall tour to expand House Republicans’ 17-seat majority. The GOP’s efforts to broaden the playing field include races in blue regions like New York, New England and California, and support for gay candidates like DeMaio and Massachusetts’s Richard Tisei.

[...]

“Our decisions on the Republican nominees we support will not be based on race, gender or sexual orientation, but will be based on the strength of their candidacy and their ability to defeat Democrats,” NRCC spokesman Ian Prior said.

All three of the Republican candidates opposed by FRC and NOM are long-shot races in Democratic areas. Boehner, Sen. McConnell, and Republican groups think the conditions this cycle are ripe to peel off at least a couple of those seats. But, seriously, Wehby is 13 points down. Maybe the GOP will get lucky with DeMaio or Tisei.

Boehner's efforts come in the wake of the RNC's 2012 post-mortem report suggesting that a new approach to gay candidates and gay issues, among other things, is needed to appeal to younger voters.

The Associated Press concludes that the GOP has broken up into 3 groups on same-sex marriage: the supporters, the opponents, and the folks who really would rather not talk about it. I suspect the lattermost group is growing faster than either of the other two.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 02:20 PM

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