The Obamanomenon

Kevin Drum rambles (his word) about the Democratic nominees. I'm not going to go into his whole post, but instead deal with what got him started on the subject, the story about the Obama campaign choosing to allow Donnie McClurkin, a so-called 'reformed gay' gospel singer, in one of his campaign events this past weekend.

I think Kevin is being far too presumptuous when he writes

If anything, this puts the whole thing in an even worse light, because it makes it seem more likely that teaming up with McClurkin was a deliberate decision, not just a staff mistake. There's no telling, of course, but it's either a case of horrible judgment or a case of horrible vetting and planning. Those are both pretty bad signs.

I don't think there's any proof that is either a case of horrible vetting or bad judgment. Isn't it at least possible that the Obama camp knew about his beliefs, and decided that they wanted his endorsement anyway?

Look, you can't demand ideological purity of every person that you ask to back you, support you, or participate in your campaign. That's not possible. And, especially, it ought to come as no surprise that, if Obama is going to be courting southern, black, evangelical voters, some of them are going to be, let's say, less-than-full supporters of the gay movement.

And that's fine. In fact, that goes to the whole heart of his campaign's ideals. He is not an interest group-driven candidate, and acknowledges that, if he is going to have the kind of public mandate that he thinks will be needed to get done everything he wants to, he's going to have to accept the support of some people who don't agree with him on every issue, and, probably, the support of some who rather vehemently disagree with him.

Reading a little about this guy on wikipedia, I don't think that I would want his endorsement, if I were running. But, honestly, issues of gay equality are probably a bit more important to me than they are to Obama. And that's okay. I still think his strategy, of trying to improve the tone of debate in the campaign by trying to do more than appeal to the so-called "50% plus one" majority, is a winning strategy, for Obama, for the Democrats, and for the country.